In the fall of 2017, we acquired an Agilent 7900 quadrupole ICP-MS, a Teledyne CETAC LSX-213 G2 laser ablation system, and an Agilent 5100 ICP-OES. This instrument cluster is managed by the Materials Characterization Lab of the UML Core Research Facilities.
The ICP-MS is capable of measuring most of the elements on the Periodic Table, in many cases down to the ppt level, and has a He collision cell to cut down on interferences. Interface with the laser allows for in situ analysis of solid samples with minimal sample prep.
I initially set up protocols for simultaneous U-Pb dating and trace element analysis of the minerals zircon, monazite, rutile, and titanite by LA-ICP-MS, and am currently working to expand capabilities to include apatite, garnet, and allanite/epidote. Laser ablation geochronology is based on comparison of samples to reference materials, and I've been fortunate to receive zircon, monazite, rutile, and titanite reference materials from many colleagues including George Gehrels, Chris Fisher, Matt Horstwood, John Aleinikoff, Carl Spandler, Guilherme Gonçalves, Emelie Axelsson, Zhaochu Hu, Nick Roberts, Daniela Rubatto, Cristiano Lana, Francisco Apen, Dengfeng Li, and Bartosz Budzyn, who I thank for their generosity and support.
Shown here is a recent paper that containing the first data produced by the lab.
Here we have a Tera-Wasserburg plot of the FC-1 zircon standard normalized to Plesovice. FC-1 has an accepted age of 1098 Ma.
This is the Trebilcock, a monazite standard from a New England pegmatite with an accepted age of 272 Ma, normalized to the 44069 monazite standard.