NSRL works in collaboration with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurement facilities to provide state-of-the-art radiocarbon preparation and measurement services to the local University and Federal research communities.  The lab also pursues in-house research on applications of ¹⁴C dating to climate change studies, calibration of the ¹⁴C timescale, and the use of ¹⁴C as a geochemical and geophysical tracer in the Earth system.

Contact & Services

Lab phone: 303 492-0362

Please contact Chad Wolak, Laboratory Manager, 303 492-5019 regarding routine sample submissions.

Collaboration

NSRL maintains an active collaboration with the NOAA’s Boulder-based Global Monitoring Division (GMD) aimed at development and use of ultra-precise ¹⁴C measurement in CO₂ as a quantitative tracer for recently-added, fossil fuel derived CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Media stories

• Lawns and landscaping complicate taking the measure of Los Angeles Basin’s carbon footprint (2020)
• Tracking fossil fuel emissions with carbon-14 (2020)
• One fifth of Los Angeles’s CO₂ rises from lawns and golf courses (2018)
• Ozone treaty taking a bite out of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (2017)
• The climate lab that sits empty (2017)
• Humans, not climate change, wiped out Australian megafauna (2017)

Overview video (2.5 min)

Publications

Publications by Lehman are included below.