Wooster, OH – Team geochemistry returned to Wooster this week with a serious focus on sample prep and data quality. Anyone with geochemical research experience understands the importance of preparing samples carefully and thoroughly, and having an analytical instrument that is well-calibrated for your samples. Some of our recent analyses have yielded surprising results, and now we’re double checking our sample prep process and instrument calibration to make sure the data are reliable.
Kendra and Layali are loading samples into the XRF. They are gaining a lot of hands-on experience operating the instrument.
The XRF measures the chemical composition of samples by exciting them with an X-ray beam. The X-ray beam causes the atoms in the sample to emit their own X-rays, which travel through a series of filters and crystals and are measured by a detector. The signal from the detector is converted to a concentration using a calibration curve that was made by measuring standards with known concentrations.
We are running the XRF at full capacity with drift-correct samples, unknowns, and standards, so that we can test the quality of the calibration and resulting data.
But we didn’t just work in the lab all week. We’re also preparing to for our upcoming trip to Iceland. We needed to pick up a few things, like rain gear. Only the essentials, of course.