Research Facilities

Materials Characterization Lab

The Geology and Geophysics Department supports state-of-the-art instrumentation and laboratories for characterization of chemical composition, crystalline structure, and morphology of both natural and man-made solid materials. The Lab has an Electron Microprobe; an automated powder diffraction system, and a SEM equipped with a backscattered electron detector, a cathodoluminescence detector, and a light-element energy dispersive x-ray detector (capable of detection of elements with atomic number of 5 or greater) in addition to the standard secondary electron detector. We have recently added a Electron Backscatter Diffraction System (EBSD) (and colloidal polishing facility) to our SEM to provide a facility to measure the full 3-D crystallographic properties of materials. A new XRF spectrometer is being ordered and will up up and running during the 2008-2009 academic year.

Surface Chemistry Laboratory

This lab contains a high power 10 Hz Nd:YAG pulsed laser, optical parametric oscillator for frequency tuning, and optics for second harmonic generation (SHG). SHG provides information about the mineral-water interface or the mineral-gas interface and supports fundamental research on chemical interactions between the materials of the Earth and their fluid surroundings (primarily water-rock interaction). Supporting these two labs is a complete wet-chemical laboratory housing computer-controlled titration systems, balances, ovens, potentiometric techniques, and many others.

We also have a scanning probe microscopy (SPM) laboratory with a Digital Instruments scanning tunneling microscope (STM) and Multimode atomic force microscope (AFM) supporting various SPM imaging techniques. We also have a Molecular imaging in-situ STM and AFM optimized for electrochemical imaging and an EG&G potentiostat to support electrochemical SPM. We also have a home-built and patented hydrothermal AFM (HAFM) capable of in-situ imaging in corrosive aqueous solutions at up to 170°C and 25 bars pressure.

Fission Track Laboratory

The Fission Track lab is managed by Professor Barbara Carrapa and is equipped with an Olympus BH2 microscope (1875 total magnification) with a drawing tube, a Kinetek computer-driven stage, a Calcomp digitzing tablet, and FT Stage software. A video camera is mounted on the triaxial head of the microscope, allowing a group of people to observe a slide simultaneously. At present, apatite minerals are analyzed with the external detector method (EDM) and we are working on analyzing zircon minerals. All the necessary facilities (T-controlled water bath for etching) for apatite and zircon fission track analyses and a lab for fission track thin section preparation and polishing are in-house. The FT lab also includes a Leica M165 C with trinocular tube, standard eyepieces 10x/23 B, high eyepoint, adjustable, coarse/fine focus drive, transmitted light base TL ST, polarization set for transmitted light bases with rotatable polarization stage for precise selection of grains for (U/Th)/He analyses.

Aqueous Geochemistry Labs

The Geochemistry Analytical Laboratory houses chemical storage (including a refrigerated room), a refrigerated benchtop 22K G centrifuge, microwave digestion, distilled deionized and RO water, BET surface area measurement, ICP-MS (quadrupole), ion chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, standardized titrations, ICP emission, atomic absorption, UV-vis spectrophotometry, and other analytical techniques. The Geochemistry Analytical Laboratory is overseen by a Ph.D. level analytical chemistry, Dr. Steve Boese. In addition to these group-use facilities, individual department faculty house other instrumentation in their laboratories. For example, Optical Waveguide Lightmode Spectroscopy (OWLS), supported with an oxygen plasma surface cleaning system, is available.

Radiogenic Isotope Laboratory

The radiogenic isotope laboratory in the Department of Geology and Geophysics includes mineral separation facilities, clean rooms and thermal ionization mass spectrometer for Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd and U-Pb isotopic analyses. Mineral separation facilities include standard Wilfley table and magnetic and heavy liquid separation equipment along with computer-numerically-controlled microdrill for micro-isotopic analysis of zoning within minerals. The Class 100 clean lab consists of three rooms with positive pressure, HEPA filtered air and no exposed metal. It is furnished with 7 polypropylene HEPA-filtered laminar-flow fume hoods. Our Micromass Sector 54 thermal ionization mass spectrometer has ion counting Daly and WARP filter with both positive and negative ion capabilities. The mass spectrometer is housed in temperature controlled, positive-pressure clean rooms that are equipped with HEPA-filtered laminar flow benches for sample loading.

Core Teaching and Research Lab

The drill-core research and teaching lab is an important component of our sedimentary and petroleum geology program. This facility houses representative cores of nearly every clastic depositional environment as well as many carbonate environments. In addition to regular classroom use, this facility is used by graduate students and faculty to examine cores temporarily provided by companies for research purposes and in teaching core workshops offered through the University for professional geologists.

Geophysical computational facilities

Our geophysical computing lab is supplied with 15 workstations for each student that run the Linux and Solaris operating systems on high speed modern hardware. Large-scale computation, for seismic imaging and fluid flow, two large-scale Linux clusters are used by Dr. Chen, Dr. Mallick, and Dr. Zhang. Some of the best software in the Oil exploration business - Landmark and Focus - operates on many dual monitor SUN workstations. The computer support provided by our the Unix/Linux system administrator – Jeff Lang – is excellent.

Remote Sensing Laboratory

The Remote Sensing Laboratory contains computers, optical and digital equipment for interpreting photographs and satellite images and for constructing maps. The purpose of this lab is to give students studying remote sensing all the tools they will need to be successful in pursuit of their degrees.

Vertebrate Paleontology Collection

The Collection of Fossil Vertebrates represents an integral research and teaching component for the Department. The collection is a nationally recognized, public scientific resource that emphasizes the late Mesozoic and Cenozoic fossil record of Wyoming's Laramide basins and High Plains. The collection has roots that extend back to 1887, when The University of Wyoming's Geological Museum was founded.

Mac and PC Computer Labs

The in-house Computer Labs contains the latest PC and Mac hardware, software, and peripherals. The lab features everything necessary to produce posters, slides, and illustrations for a wide variety of purposes. It contains all of the most popular drawing programs and other productivity software. The PC classroom supports teaching in image processing, GIS, GPS, geophysics and geochemistry. When it is not being used for teaching, it is available to students who require the use of the specialized software for their coursework and research. Software includes: Four image processing software packages (ERDAS, MIPS, ENVI, ERMapper), Digital mapping software (ArcInfo, All Topo, and MapSource).

Brinkerhoff Geology Library

The center is part of the UW Libraries system and houses books, theses, dissertations, journals, maps and governmental publications related to geology, geophysics, physical geography, mining and petroleum geology and geological engineering.