Back to About the Department. Members of this interest group are actively involved in field and laboratory-supported research worldwide, drawing on an array of analytical facilities in the Department, CIRES, and INSTAAR.
In addition to field studies in Colorado and other areas of the western U.S., field programs are currently active in igneous petrology, economic geology, and geochemistry in Mexico, Chile, Peru, southern Africa, and Nepal. Through ties with other departments and LASP, studies extend to investigations of the geochemical evolution of other planets. In mineralogy and crystallography, research is focused on understanding controls of crystal structure on the distribution of elements in the Earth, using X-ray, neutron, and electron diffraction methods and computer-modeling techniques. In igneous petrology, studies have focused on understanding the geochemical evolution of volcanic rocks and mafic and ultramafic inclusion. Field sites include volcanic terranes of central and southern South America and kimberlites of South Africa. In aqueous and low-temperature geochemistry, research has examined the interactions between rocks and water at low temperatures, including studies of contamination due to the activities of humans. In economic geology, emphasis has been on the genesis of ores through the study of phase equilibria, fluid inclusions, and radiogenic and stable isotopes. Recent developments in metal economics have led to increasing interest in epithermal deposits of gold, silver, and tungsten. Research in radiogenic isotope geochemistry has focused on the isotopic evolution of the continental crust of the western U.S. In stable-isotope geochemistry, current research is on sulfur and oxygen-isotope geochemistry of ore deposits, on hydrologic cycles, and on the theoretical predictions of oxygen-isotopic fractionation based on crystal structure. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Chicago have collaborated in this research.
A research branch of the Water Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey is also housed on the University campus. Numerous cooperative research projects exist between personnel of the U.S. Geological Survey and University faculty in the water sciences. Members of the faculty also collaborate with scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in neutron diffraction studies of mineral structures, and with scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver in a variety of disciplines including trace elements, stable and radiogenic isotopes, and mineral spectroscopy.
An array of state-of-the-art instrumental technology, some of it located in the Department's geological laboratory, has found particularly extensive use by this interest group. The JEOL 8600 Superprobe installed in 1988 is widely used, and a HACH Chemical Company laboratory system for rapid analysis of water has seen increasing use since its installation in 1990. Also in the laboratory are an ISI scanning electron microscope, a quantitative image-analysis workstation for studies using real-time or recorded optical or SEM imagery, and petrographic microscopes equipped with a Technosyn stage for cathodoluminescence studies and a USGS/Fluids Inc. heating and cooling stage for fluid-inclusion studies.
In the Mineral Structures Laboratory, a new Scintag automatic powder X-ray diffractometer (1986) serves a variety of studies. A recent addition (1992) is an automated single-crystal X-ray diffractometer with rotating anode generator equipped for high-pressure and high-temperature studies of mineral crystal structures. A Jarrell-Ash Video 11 atomic- absorption spectrophotometer was installed in 1988.
At other campus locations, a Finnegan-MAT mass spectrometer and chemical preparation facilities in CIRES (1987) are being used in studies requiring intermediate to high precision analyses of strontium isotopes and Nd-Sm and other rare-earth elements. Two Micromass spectrometers for stable-isotope studies, installed at INSTAAR (1989), are being used in investigations of minerals and rocks as well as waters. In the Department of Electrical Engineering, a Hitachi 800 high-resolution transmission electron microscope (STEM), installed in 1989, is being used increasingly by Geological Sciences faculty in mineral studies.
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