The laboratory is equipped with a scrubbed fume hood, a standard fume hood, a multi-sample heated ultrasonic bath, and heavy-media separation equipment.
We have an array of equipment and facilities for cosmogenic nuclide sample preparation at the University of Wyoming.
The first step in the process is to isolate quartz from everything else in our samples of crushed rock, sediment and soils.
Please discuss your proposal with the appropriate ANSTO Contact Scientist before submitting your proposal as they will assist you in making the correct capability selection.
Pb against depth or cumulative weight (to allow for compacting) will be a straight line if the sedimentation rate has been constant.
Radioactive nuclides reach their secular equilibrium after 3-4 half-lives, which defines the applicability range of the method.
See more about the method in: Gosse and Phillips (2001); Dunai (2010); Granger et al. Exposure age determination Exposure age of a rock is the time elapsed since it has been exposed to cosmic irradiation.
Quartz is a target mineral for production of Be-10, which at the moment is the most widely used nuclide both in our studies and in the literature as well.
Because Be-10 is produced slowly (at just 22 per gram per year in the Laramie area) we need large amounts of quartz so that there are enough atoms to measure.
The laboratory doubles as a dark room for the preparation of silver salts.
The laboratory has a scrubbed fume hood for the use of hydrofluoric acid in rock digestion.