TIMS laboratory

Triton-XT thermal ionisation mass spectrometer equipped with full array of 10e11 and 10e13 Ohm amplifiers, RPQ and secondary electron multiplier. This instrument is dedicated to U-Pb geochronology.
VG Sector 54-30 with upgraded collector array (10e12 Ohm amplifiers) and new photomultiplier (Daly) collector. The Sector 54-30 is used routinely for measurement of common Pb, Sr and Nd isotopes.
Oil free pumps are used for vacuum control and evacuation of amplifier housings.
A UPS system for voltage smoothing and instrument control during power outages is installed on the Triton-XT.
Two dedicated sample bays, one for U-Pb work and the other for everything else, are available for filament loading
Isotope data are interrogated using Tripoli, which imports raw mass spectrometer data files and supports interactive review and archiving of isotopic data. Tripoli facilitates visualization of temporal trends and scatter during measurement, statistically rigorous filtering of data, and calculation of statistical parameters.
ET_Redux is routinely used for determination of U-Pb ages (Bowring et al., 2011).
All instruments can be controlled remotely to ensure fast sample throughput.