Isotope Geochemistry Lab

Welcome to the Isotope Geochemistry Lab at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The lab is composed of members of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, LDEO and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) with a wide range of interests, united by a passion for scientific inquiry and discovery.

Current projects range from studies of magmatic processes to chemical oceanography, from the history of the early Earth to recent climate changes. Most studies utilize the products of natural radioactive decay in rocks and waters, as process tracers and to determine absolute ages. Routinely used isotopic techniques include Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd, Th-U-Pb, Lu-Hf, Re-Os, Li isotopes, and intermediate products of U-decay.

The group has an active field program. Recent trips include sampling of volcanics and sediments from the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Antarctic and Arctic ocean floor, seawater from the North and South Atlantic as part of the GEOTRACES Program, volcanoes in Mexico and Chile, uplifted coral reefs in Barbados, sediments of the Dead Sea (including the Dead Sea Deep Drill Core, funded by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program).

In Fall 2011 the lab will gain a brand new ultra-clean chemistry laboratory built by PicoTrace to complement our conventional chemistry labs in the new Comer Geochemistry Building at LDEO. We are part of the LDEO-AMNH ICPMS Laboratory, which  will soon gain a brand new (2011) Thermo-Finnigan Neptune multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICPMS) to go along with our single collector sector and quadrupole ICPMS instruments, all for chemical and isotopic analyses, and our 193 nm Excimer laser for in-situ analysis. We also have a multi-collector thermal ionization mass spectrometers (TIMS) for isotope analyses, and a new (2011) Aspex Xpress scanning electron microscope with electron dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). Complementary analytical facilities at LDEO also available for use by lab members include mass spectrometers for stable isotope and rare gas analyses, x-ray diffraction, and an electron microprobe.

Prospective students and post-doctoral fellows with a passion for scientific exploration, who are willing to get their hands dirty but keep their samples clean are encouraged to contact us.