| NSF Org: |
EAR Division Of Earth Sciences |
| Recipient: |
|
| Initial Amendment Date: | April 15, 2015 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | May 3, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1415543 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
David Lambert
EAR Division Of Earth Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | May 15, 2015 |
| End Date: | April 30, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $534,820.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $534,820.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
|
| History of Investigator: |
|
| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1109 GEDDES AVE STE 3300 ANN ARBOR MI US 48109-1015 (734)763-6438 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
|
| Primary Place of Performance: |
MI US 48109-1063 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
|
| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
|
| Parent UEI: |
|
| NSF Program(s): | Instrumentation & Facilities |
| Primary Program Source: |
|
| Program Reference Code(s): | |
| Program Element Code(s): |
|
| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
This award will provide funds to replace the 12 year old, collectively-owned, community-based High Resolution Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (HR-ICP-MS). Updating the ICP-MS facilities at the University of Michigan will provide both traditional and novel tools to understanding surface geology, marine systems, environmental science, regional climate and subglacial processes, and will be a significant infrastructure improvement to the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Continued infrastructure support to the University of Michigan will also be a resource to other local universities in the SE Michigan region.
Research projects supported by the updating and retooling of HR-ICP-MS capabilities include: trace element geochemistry of marine sediments and carbonate archives to determine past environments and anthropogenic influence including proxy records of droughts, floods, ocean-atmosphere dynamics and sea surface temperature; trace and REE geochemistry of terrestrial sediments, paleosols and ancient sedimentary units, to reconstruct paleo-redox, ancient atmospheric CO2, and basin environments; major and trace element concentrations to elucidate factors controlling spatial and temporal variations in chemical fluxes from glaciated terrains; radioactive heavy isotope concentrations to accurately determine the age of the deepest ice within ice sheets; radioactive isotope concentrations by isotope dilution, as part of the U-Th/He thermochronology method used to study young tectonic histories and climate-tectonic interactions; the geochemistry of biological material from fossils to proteins; and the biogeochemistry of trace metals, including the release, transport and bioaccumulation of metals within the environment.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Organisms, physical and chemical processes change the relative abundance of elements in the rocks, biological remains, and waters of our planet. Using the elemental composition of materials, we can piece together Earth’s history, identify unknown dangers in our environment and tap into new resources. Amongst the instruments in our elemental toolbox is the inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). Ions are generated when sample in solution is sprayed into a plasma. When these ions are passed onto a mass spectrometer, the concentration of different elements and their isotopes can be determined based on their mass-to-charge ratio. ICP-MS instruments are popular because in a matter of minutes the concentrations of elements with a wide range of atomic masses, from 6lithium to 238uranium can be determined.
The Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Michigan has a long history of providing elemental analysis in the former Keck Lab, which was built in the 1990s. This much-used space was completely renovated to accommodate two new inductively coupled mass spectrometers (ICP-MS) – a Thermo-Scientific ICAP Quadrupole ICP-MS and a Thermo-Scientific Element 2 High-Resolution ICP-MS. The facility reopened in late 2018 as the Michigan Elemental Analysis Lab (MEAL). Effectively the new lab will provide solution-based elemental analysis on a variety of materials from rock through to natural waters in concentration ranges from ppm to ppt in biological, environmental, geological and industrial materials.
MEAL is now providing elemental analyses for the Department of Earth and Environmental Science, the greater University of Michigan community and the general public in Southeast Michigan. PI Hendy has developed protocols for analyzing redox-sensitive metal in marine sediments and elemental composition of foraminiferal carbonate. PI Sheldon has analyzed Middle Island sinkhole sediments for their iron content to provide a modern analogy for the Proterozoic Earth. PI Blum has analyzed freshwaters from Michigan and is developing a protocol to measure lead isotopes to determine the source of lead dissolving into water. New faculty members (Julia Cole and Sierra Peterson) are analyzing waters and carbonate sediments for their elemental composition. MEAL has provided analyses for outside users in SE Michigan. A local ink manufacturer has employed the lab to determine the elemental composition of their ink (tin in particular).
Last Modified: 06/14/2019
Modified by: Ingrid L Hendy
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
