Kevin Rock, CIRE Intern from Savannah State University

The organic biogeochemistry laboratories at Skidaway Institute of Oceanography located on Skidaway Island in Savannah, GA consist of a 600 sq. ft. wet laboratory and a 200 sq. ft. instrument room. Both labs are equipped with independent climate-controlled atmospheres and fume hoods (3 x 6-ft in the wet lab) for handling hazardous materials.

In addition to the usual small pieces of equipment (rotovaps, extractors, evaporation systems, chromatograph setups, ovens and muffle furnace)

Major Equipment Includes:

• Agilent 6890 GC/5793 mass spectrometer (GC/MS) system configured for electron impact (EI) and chemical ionization (CI) used for identification of organic molecules.

• Agilent 6890 and Carlo Erba 8100 capillary gas chromatographs (GC's) with flame ionization (FID) and flame photometric detectors (FPD) and on-column injectors. All data is acquired and processed on a PC using Agilent Chemstation or Justice Laboratories ChromPerfect acquisition cards and software.

• Gerstel Preparative Capillary Gas Chromatograph (PCGC) (Gerstel Inc.) fraction collector for isolation of individual compounds for compound-specific radiocarbon analysis (csra) at the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (NOSAMS) at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

• Iatroscan Mark III thin layer chromatography/flame ionization detector (TLC/FID) system for quantification of lipid classes.

• Carlo Erba NA1500 elemental analyzer (CNS).

• Dionex Accelerated Solvent Extractor (ASE)

Field Sampling Gear Includes:

• Several Indented Rotating Sphere Valve (IRS) sediment traps developed collaboratively by Stuart Wakeham, Cindy Lee of State University of New York, Stony Brook and John Hedges and Michael Peterson of the University of Washington with funding from the National Science Foundation, Division of Ocean Sciences.

• Several in situ pumps with various large-diameter filter holders for collecting large volume particulate samples.