Earth Sciences

The Bloomsbury Environmental Isotope Facility

This is a stable-isotope laboratory shared with the Departments of Geography and Chemistry. Three mass spectrometers analyse C, N, O, S & H in minerals, water and organic matter. Natural radio-nuclides are counted using three gamma- and eight alpha-spectrometers and an ultra-low-background scintillation counter, supporting a ²¹⁰Pb dating service for lake sediments and the study of U-series radio-nuclides in ground-waters and their host rocks. more

Environmental Sedimentology Facility

This facility houses an XRF core-scanner and multi-sensor core-logger which measures elemental abundance and magnetic-susceptibility/gamma-ray density in sedimentary cores for high-resolution reconstructions of climate-induced changes in sediment supply. LC/MS allows measurements of biomarker-based palaeotemperatures from marine and terrestrial organic matter. more

Micropalaeontology Laboratories

This laboratory provides facilities for quantifying microfossil assemblages via optical and scanning-electron microscopy, and geochemical analyses, underpinning (micro)palaeontological and palaeoceanographical research. They feature clean, controlled environments to prepare organic-walled, calcareous and silicious microfossils, measure biogenic carbonate and perform taxon-specific geochemical analysis. more

Mineral Physics and Haskel Laboratories

These laboratories support measurements of the physical and chemical properties of the minerals of the Earth's deep interior. New powder- and single-crystal-diffractometers, heated diamond-cells and non-ambient temperature stages, allow precise measurements of P-V-T EOS and their derivatives to interpret seismological observations. Deformation multi-anvil presses developed in-house allow, uniquely, rheological measurements under transition-zone and lower-mantle conditions. Mineral Physics and CPOM maintain Sun-clusters and satellite data storage facilities. Earth Sciences was, with Chemistry and Physics, instrumental in driving UCL investment (£4.5M 2001-07) in supercomputing, currently supporting 2700 cores with 11 TB of shared memory. more | more

Rock and Ice Physics Laboratories

The RIPL Laboratories support measurements of the evolution of physical and mechanical properties under cryospheric and crustal conditions. Recent developments include: a new polyaxial and tomography cell for deforming EPICA-borehole ice samples to develop anisotropic flow laws for the Antarctic ice sheet; triaxial-deformation ensemble with permeability, wave velocity, electrical and 3-D microseismicity measurements to develop a chemo-thermo-hydro-mechanical model of crustal dynamics; environmental SEM with high/low temperature and deformation stages to study the micromechanics of ice/rock deformation. more

Geochronology Laboratory

The London Geochronology Centre uses fission-track, quadrupole mass-spectrometer, noble-gas spectrometer and LA-ICPMS to measure uranium fission-track, (U-Th)/He⁴⁰ Ar³⁹ and U-Pb isotopic signatures in apatite, zircon, biotite, muscovite and sanidine. These data are used to constrain lithospheric evolution, especially tectonic and climate-erosion driven uplift and exhumation. more

Wolfson Laboratory for Environmental Geochemistry

This laboratory measures the geochemical properties of the Earth’s surface materials, underpinning research on biogeochemical cycling and environmental pollution. New ICP-OES, ion chromatography and carbon-sulphur instruments allow analysis of major- and trace-element compositions. The Groundwater Tracing Unit provides analyses of artificial and natural tracers in water. more