Professor Johnson directs the recently established UC Irvine Center for Isotope Tracers in Earth Science (CITIES) which houses a variety of instrumentation to prepare and analyze gases, organic matter, inorganic samples, and water for stable isotope composition. There are five IRMS at UC Irvine to measure stable isotope ratios of the light elements: Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Hydrogen. A ThermoFinnigan Delta V Plus interfaced with a Kiel IV device for oxygen and carbon isotope measurements of carbonate samples was installed in the Johnson Laboratory October 2008. This instrument is currently measuring carbonate standards with an external precision of 0.08‰ for d18O and 0.06‰ for d13C. The laboratory also houses a Nu Instruments AttoM HR-ICPMS, which was installed in August 2009. The available sample introduction system includes a Cetac ASX-112FR autosampler, an Aridus II desolvating nebulizer system and a Nu Instruments DSN.
The following equipment is also available:
- A class-10 polypropylene NuAire Vertical Laminar Airflow Fume Hood
- Two class-100 Airclean Systems Laminar Flow cabinet
- Two Sartorius Analytical Balances
- A Sartorius Ultra Micro-balance
- A Barnstead Nanopure Analytical UV + TOC DI water system
- An Eppendorf 5430 Centrifuge
- A Savillex DST-1000 Sub-boiling Still
- A NewWave Instruments Micromill
- A Sherline micromilling system
- An Olympus Polarizing Compound Research Microscope
- An Olympus Stereo Microscope
- An Olympus digital microscope camera
- Extensive field equipment, including: vertical caving gear, lights, handheld pCO2 logger, handheld thermohygrometer,portable pH/Conductivity/Salinity meter, a Li-COR Infrared CO2/H2O Analyzer
For information on running samples in the CITIES laboratory, please contact Kathleen Johnson.