Lab: Noble Gas Laboratory

Managed by Drs. B. Mack Kennedy and Matthijs van Soest
Bldg 70A, rooms 4419, 4421, LBNL

The Noble Gas Laboratory is a facility with capabilities for high precision isotopic and elemental abundance measurements of the five stable noble gas elements (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe) as contained in fluids, rocks and minerals.

The noble gases represent excellent natural tracers for sources and migration of volatiles in the Earth's crust, mantle and atmo-hydrosphere. For instance, the utility of using noble gases to trace the influence of mantle volatiles in the crust, to assess volcanic hazard, as natural tracers for fluid origins and reservoir processes, and in constraining geodynamic models is well established. Several low abundance noble gas isotopes, particularly 3He and 21Ne, are also produced at sufficient rates by in situ cosmic-ray interactions to be extremely valuable for studying Quaternary events, rates and processes related to geomorphology, paleoclimates, as well as, meteorite exposure histories. The facility houses two ultra-high-vacuum gas source mass spectrometers each with a dedicated ultra-high vacuum sample preparation line. One mass spectrometer (RARGA) was built in house with a sample preparation line designed specifically for the analyses of noble gases contained in fluids and can be deployed in the field. The other is a VG/Fisons 5400 Noble Gas mass spectrometer (TANGO) with sample preparation line designed for vacuum gas extraction from rocks and minerals. This system is equipped with an in vacuo rock/mineral crusher and high temperature vacuum furnace.

The Center for Isotope Geochemistry and the Noble Gas Laboratory also maintain a Gas-Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer for determining bulk gas composition and speciation in fluid samples.