The Geochronology laboratory provides dates and rates for geological processes using the 40Ar/39Ar dating method. Applications range from very young (several thousands of years) to very old (billions of years) rocks. Users include bachelor-, master-, PhD students, postdocs and other research staff from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a large number of national and international universities and research institutes.
Current instruments and facilities are:
- Thermofisher Helix MC noble gas mass spectrometer equipped with 5 dual collectors: Faraday cup L1 equipped with either 1012 or 1013 Ohm amplifiers and compact discrete dynode per collector position.
- Themofisher Argus VI+ noble gas mass spectrometer equipped with 6 collectors: Faradays cups on H2, H1, AX and L1 equipped with either 1012 or 1013 Ohm amplifiers and compact discrete dynodes on L2 and L3.
- 2 Hiden Quadrupoles.
- 3 Synrad CO2 lasers + scanheads.
- 3 in-house developed vacuum systems connected to the Helix MC, Argus VI+ and Hidden Quadrupole.
- Crushers and Heine-type resistance furnace that can be connected to either Helix MC or Argus VI+.
Research projects in the lab focus on research questions related to high resolution geological time scales and their applications, sediment provenance studies, dating of fluid flow and metamorphic processes and dating of magmatic systems.
The VU geochronology lab is open to (inter)national academic and commercial collaborations. Due to lab capacity not all requests can be accommodated. Note, that due to the irradiation step in the procedure turn-around time is generally ~1 year.
Please, contact prof.dr. Klaudia Kuiper (k.f.kuiper@vu.nl) to discuss potential projects and terms & conditions.