Facilities
Trace-Element Geochemistry Lab The newly remodeled lab has a new clean room style fume hood, laminar floor hood and new Milli-Q Advantage water purification system. The lab currently houses a Perkin Elmer Elan 6100 ICP-MS funded through a grant from the Department of Defense. Coming Fall 2020 the lab will host a new Thermo Scientific iCAP RQ Quadrupole ICP-MS with CETAC Autosampler. Only a few mL of liquid sample are needed for quickly measuring most elements with sub parts-per-billion detection levels. Funding for the remodel and new instrumentation in this lab was through a grant from the Keck Consortium.
The California Well Sample Repository - containing cores and samples from more than 5000 wells from both on- and offshore California and 1500 catalogued micropaleontological samples, is located on campus.
Geophysics Equipment and Facilities include a 12-channel seismograph, magnetometer, gravimeter, and an electrical resistivity meter.
The Petrography Laboratory hosts a wide range of petrographic microscopes including luminescence and epifluorescence, a PANalytic Empyrean X-Ray diffractometer, and a Hitachi Scanning Electron Microscope.
X-Ray Diffractometer The PANalytical Empyrean X-Ray Diffractometer is used for the identification of minerals in soils and sediments by powder X-Ray diffraction. Funding for this instrument was through a 2015 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation program.
Scanning Electron Microscopy Laboratory Established in 2007, the lab houses a Hitachi S-3400 variable pressure scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an Oxford Inca energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer (EDS), Gitan ChromaCL live color cathodoluminescence (CL) imaging system and an IXRF x-ray fluorescence microanalysis system. The EDS detector measures the elemental composition of samples and the CL detector shows subtle, otherwise invisible textures such as zonation in crystals. Funding for this lab was through a grant from the Department of Defense.
Field Equipment We have a full range of field equipment and instruments for the collection of water, soil, and sediment samples, and field measurements. This includes a Giddings coring rig for the collection of sediment cores and the installation of shallow monitoring wells. Funding for the coring rig was through a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Arrangements for use of additional equipment at local companies are easily made.
