
The climate controlled subroom housing the PhoeniX62 TIMS instrument, viewed from the control room.
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.
News
Publications
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Onset of long-lived silicic and alkaline magmatism in eastern North America precedes CAMP emplacement
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Volcano-pluton connections at the Lake City magmatic center (Colorado, USA)
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Constraints on the Timescales and Processes that Led to High-SiO2 Rhyolite Production in the Searchlight Pluton, NV, USA
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A red bole zircon record of cryptic silicic volcanism in the Deccan Traps, India
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An evaluation of Deccan Traps eruption rates using geochronologic data