Category Archives: Geochemistry

On the Necessity of Specialist Meetings – #ASITA2013

I am writing this from a classroom at the University of Calgary, where I’m attending a conference called ASITA (Advances in Stable Isotope Techniques and Applications). I’ve been tweeting about it here (Apparently, though, I’m the only one tweeting. Maybe others will join next year.)

Continue reading “On the Necessity of Specialist Meetings – #ASITA2013”

The Mystery of the Delta Value – Why ‰ isn’t Parts Per Thousand

I’m about to gripe. But it’s a science gripe. It’s a technical gripe. It’s about stable isotopes. If you aren’t interested in stable isotopes, I suggest you tune out now.

There’s this thing in stable isotopes, especially the so-called ‘light’ isotopes like hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. It’s called the ‘delta’ value. When we say what the stable isotopic measurement of something is, we say ‘the delta value is blah-blah-blah.’ The value is always in the units of permil (‰).

“δ13C of warm-season grasses is -14‰.”Continue reading “The Mystery of the Delta Value – Why ‰ isn’t Parts Per Thousand”

#RealTimeChem and Powdering Fossils

Continuing on with #RealTimeChem week (@RealTimeChem on Twitter), here’s something that not too many ‘traditional’ chemists have to do, but geochemists have to do all the time. It’s not very often when you can just stick a rock into an instrument and take a geochemical measurement. Usually, the rock (or fossil, in this case) has to be powdered first.Continue reading “#RealTimeChem and Powdering Fossils”

#RealTimeChem and Preparing Geological Samples for Analysis

It’s #RealTimeChem week (@RealTimeChem on Twitter). To celebrate, I’m going to illustrate both some of the procedures we do in the laboratory and how #RealTimeChem works. I’ll also show how geochemistry, while somewhat different from ‘traditional’ chemistry (geochemists tend to have degrees in geology and not in chemistry, for example), it is still chemistry.Continue reading “#RealTimeChem and Preparing Geological Samples for Analysis”

Random Science Poems Written on the Spot

Tonight, I was at a loss for what to blog about. The prompts I have available are not as inspiring as usual. So I asked the hive mind for suggestions:

Continue reading “Random Science Poems Written on the Spot”