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After 7 years of distinguished service, Dr. Mark Kurz has stepped down as NOSAMS Director and Dr. Susan Lang has taken up the post. The staff is very grateful to Mark who helped steer the facility through key staffing changes, the pandemic, and a successful proposal to the NSF Major Research Initiative to fund a new MIni CArbon DAting System (MICADAS), manufactured by IonPlus.
Dr. Susan Lang started as the new NOSAMS Director in May, 2022. She has a strong background using radiocarbon in the areas of dissolved organic carbon and compound specific analyses of small polar molecules. She has a long-standing interest in developing new radiocarbon and stable carbon methods.
In preparation for the installation of a new AMS system, we had to dismantle the USAMS system in December 2021 after 30 years of operations. We have retained the USAMS hybrid ion source and low energy magnet.
After 30 years of operations, the USAMS system was decommissioned to make room for the new MICADAS system.
NOSAMS is pleased to host the 2021 Symposium of Northeastern Accelerator Personnel (SNEAP). The meeting is May 3-5 and will be virtual.
SNEAP is a community of personnel involved with electrostatic particle accelerators and their use. Founded in 1968, the organization gathers annually to discuss and exchange information to the benefit of all who attend. The topics covered include ion sources, electrostatic and RF accelerators, telemetry and control systems, cryogenic systems, safety issues and many other topics relevant to the operation of small to medium sized electrostatic accelerator laboratories. The meeting format includes submitted papers, laboratory reports, and open discussions.
More information and registration is available on the conference website.
As COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts have declined, WHOI is beginning it’s phased opening plan. The institution will be open, but the campuses will still be closed and open only to those that have been approved.
NOSAMS continues to be open and to operate with a partial staff in this new re-opening phase while respecting conservative physical distancing as outlined by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and WHOI policies. We are accepting and processing samples. NOSAMS does not expect an increase in turnaround times as a result of COVID-19. Please send questions or comments to nosams@whoi.edu.
Sophie Hage is a postgraduate research student studying Sedimentology within Ocean and Earth Science in the National Oceanography Centre at the Southampton at the University of Southampton. From March to June in 2018 she was a guest student here at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution working with Dr. Valier Galy. While here at WHOI working with Dr. Galy, she spent a lot of her time here at NOSAMS on the Ramped Pyrolysis and Oxidation (RPO) system.
Her recent work includes the work she did at a guest student at NOSAMS and WHOI, “Efficient preservation of young terrestrial organic carbon in sandy turbidity-current deposits”
Jon Sanderman visited the lab in 2019 to use the RPO on a series of soil profiles sampled decadally since the 1960’s. Did you know that the RPO was originally called the dirt burner? His paper is now out: Ramped thermal analysis for isolating biologically meaningful soil organic matter fractions with distinct residence times
Jessie Pearl started as a MIT/WHOI joint program student under Jeff Donnelly and Kevin Anchukaitis. Jessie worked with NOSAMS to do help develop reconnaissance radiocarbon dating- a method to get quick radiocarbon results at a lower cost and at a reduced precision- for organic carbon samples. She finished her PhD at the University of Arizona and her work on the Atlantic white cedar, A late Holocene subfossil Atlantic white cedar tree-ring chronology from the northeastern United States, is now published. Jessie is now a post doc with the USGS at their Seattle Office.
Reference: Jessie K. Pearl, Kevin J. Anchukaitis, Jeffrey P. Donnelly, Charlotte Pearson, Neil Pederson, Mary C. Lardie Gaylord, Ann P. McNichol, Edward R. Cook, George L. Zimmermann, A late Holocene subfossil Atlantic white cedar tree-ring chronology from the northeastern United States, Quaternary Science Reviews, Volume 228, 2020, 106104, ISSN 0277-3791
Beverly Barnett, a graduate student at the University of Florida, came to NOSAMS as a graduate student intern. She analyzed radiocarbon in chronological layers of fish otoliths and eye lenses to develop natural, permanent biogeochemical markers of petrocarbon in the northern Gulf of Mexico food web following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Her most recent work was published earlier this year: Life history of northern Gulf of Mexico Warsaw grouper Hyporthodus nigritus inferred from otolith radiocarbon analysis.
Reference: Barnett BK, Chanton JP, Ahrens R, Thornton L, Patterson WF III (2020) Life history of northern Gulf of Mexico Warsaw grouper Hyporthodus nigritus inferred from otolith radiocarbon analysis. PLOS ONE 15(1): e0228254. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228254
The Atlantic writer Carl Zimmer writes about the events that lead to the radiocarbon “bomb spike”, the lasting mark it has left in this world, and how scientists are studying it. The article features work from Researcher Mary Lardie Gaylord et al. and their work on radiocarbon dating tree rings on a European beech tree in Woods Hole.
Nuclear Tests Marked Life on Earth With a Radioactive Spike , By Carl Zimmer
“Even as it disappears, the “bomb spike” is revealing the ways humans have reshaped the planet.”