Technician Support: The Penn State Stable-Isotope Biogeochemistry Laboratory

0092002

Freeman

This grant provides three years of partial salary support for technical assistance in the stable isotope geochemistry laboratories at Penn State University. Technical help will operate and maintain a facility consisting of six gas-source stable isotope ratio mass spectrometers and associated peripherals (i.e. gas chromatographs, elemental analyzers, vacuum lines). Additionally, technician will train new users and students and develop new techniques utilizing continuous flow technology for compound specific analysis of Hydrogen, Oxygen, Carbon and Nitrogen isotope ratios of geological samples including atmospheric gases occluded in ice cores and organics and carbonates in modern and lithified marine, estuarine and freshwater sediments. Research that will be facilitated at this lab is focused on studies of the biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen and the feedbacks between greenhouse gases, global climate, and terrestrial and marine ecosystems.

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