Florida Center forAnalytical ElectronMicroscopy, Florida International Univ.Miami, FL

Remotely Operable Research Instrumentation: Overcoming the “getting students to the machines” problem.

Routinely used in Astronomy for research and teaching.

Now Web technology has advanced enough that many different flavors of geoscience equipment can be remotely accessed.

The Analytical Instrument Registry: (http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/petrology/instruments.html) lists geochemical instrumentation available for use. Some systems are remotely accessible.

JEOL 8900 “Superprobe”:--Energy dispersive and Wavelength dispersive X-ray spectrometers, for quantitative chemical analysis of minerals.--Electron backscatter imaging.--Used to conduct micron-scale chemical studies of minerals in rocks.

JEOL JSM 5900LVScanning ElectronMicroscope --Scanning electron and electron backscatter imaging--Up to 100,000x magnification (in “geologic” mode)--EDAX energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer, for semi-quantitative chemical study

Samples are loaded by FCAEM technicians

Telephone support and troubleshooting as needed during runs.

Instruments are fully operable at a distance; only observed limitation is “tuning” the electron

backscatter camera for varying electron reflectivity of minerals.

Field Relations, Geologic context (research literature…)

Team Sample Selection/preparation and Microprobe/SEM characterization

Handsample description and identification

Term Projects: Petrologic Analysis

Preparation and description of thin sections

To Learn more (and see how it really works):

Come to Workshop Session IIEH 316

2:30 – 4:30 PM Tomorrow!

Modeling Research• Students work cooperatively to

prepare samples (cutting, sectioning, polishing).

• Student “team” defines question(s) to address with SEM/microprobe data.

• Each student team gets time on the instrument: – EVERYBODY runs the machine.