Stable Isotope Laboratory for hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen from water, ice, carbonates and methane

This facility currently has all together six gas mass spectrometers, three of which are equipped with several 'on-line' equilibration baths for oxygen and hydrogen isotopes from water, a fourth one is coupled with a methane pre-concentration device for determining stable carbon isotopes of methane from water and air, number five is coupled 'on-line' with an automatic extraction device (single acid bath technique) for oxygen and carbon isotopes from carbonates, and last but not least the sixth one is equipped with an automatic preparation device for measuring carbon isotopes from dissolved inorganic carbon in water.

Analyses routinely run in this laboratory include the determination of stable isotopic compositions of oxygen and hydrogen in ice from Antarctica and Greenland as well as oxygen, hydrogen and dissolved inorganic carbon in waters from the Weddell Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Greenland Sea and Arctic Ocean. In addition, the laboratory determines the stable isotopic composition of oxygen and carbon in biogenic carbonates from all over the world, but primarily of carbonate bearing sediment cores from the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The scientific topics currently tackled with the aid of these analyses include geological, geochemical, paleoceanographic, and oceanographic investigations on time scales between 60 million years and today, as well as biological research on calcareous benthos, phyto- and zooplancton and its specific role in the global carbon cycle. Ice and water analyses mainly serve paleoclimatic and oceanographic investigations.