Welcome to the TIMS laboratory

The Princeton radiogenic isotope geoscience lab was completed in the summer of 2011 and took shipment of a IsotopX PhoeniX62 Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometer (TIMS) in late September 2011. Following months of cleaning and blank measurement, we began doing high-precision U-Pb geochronology on zircons and other accessory minerals with sub-picogram Pb blanks, which is currently the focus of the lab's work. Please check out the publications from our group to see what we've been working on.  We also now have received another PhoeniX62, in spring 2019, which is equipped with ATONA amplifier boards, which are specialized for both ultra-low as well as high intensity Faraday measurements.  We are currently testing those to see what we can do with small U-Pb measurements.

TIMS geochronology is combined with available analytical equipment within the department of Geosciences, such as the ICP-MS lab run by Prof. Higgins, and a plethora of mineral separation and imaging facilities available within the department and on campus, including scanning electron microscopes (hosted at PRISM) capable of cathodoluminescence imaging quantitative geochemical characterization.