Here’s something that not too many ‘traditional’ chemists have to do, but geochemists have to do all the time. You can’t very easily just stick a rock into a mass spectrometer and take a geochemical measurement. Usually, the rock or mineral (enamel, in this case) has to be powdered first.
For my own research, I’m usually interested in isotopes of carbon and of oxygen, which provide information about plant life (diets of animals, habitats) and climate (temperature, humidity, precipitation), respectively.
In this post, I’ll mostly be using tweets to illustrate the collection of powdered tooth mineral. These powders will have to go through a chemical pretreatment which I will describing in a future note. These particular samples later went through a second chemical procedure that (thankfully) we don’t need for this study.
Fish scales and teeth both have ‘enamel.’ The enamel isn’t exactly the same, but it is still a calcium phosphate and the procedures are the same whether it’s a tooth or a scale. For these particular samples, grinding with a mortar and pestle was all we needed to get a sample. Sometimes, we need a dental drill! I’ll save that for a later post too!
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsA 90 million year old fish scale. Going to get it out of the rock and powder it for isotopic analysis. #realtimechem pic.twitter.com/Sjlga5lVp1
— Penny ⓐ Higgins (@paleololigo) April 19, 2013
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsFish scale about to meet its doom. #realtimechem pic.twitter.com/weohZfoSa3
— Penny ⓐ Higgins (@paleololigo) April 19, 2013
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsGrinding it up! This was an unidentifiable piece of fossil bone about 90 million years old #realtimechem pic.twitter.com/WobcVy5EHd
— Penny ⓐ Higgins (@paleololigo) April 19, 2013
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsPowder on weighing paper. Not very high-tech. #realtimechem pic.twitter.com/sTl1lqb3qA
— Penny ⓐ Higgins (@paleololigo) April 19, 2013
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsI so dislike cleaning the mortar and pestle. But I must between each sample lest I cross-contaminate. #realtimechem pic.twitter.com/lXJEPHO5O0
— Penny ⓐ Higgins (@paleololigo) April 19, 2013
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsOnly have a few more to grind. Ugh! Glad to have a good sample size, though! #realtimechem pic.twitter.com/93fhaUwiQ1
— Penny ⓐ Higgins (@paleololigo) April 19, 2013
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist 