Join us for this private tour of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Lab featuring the Stable Isotope and the Tectonics, Metamorphic Petrology & Orogenesis (TeMPO) Laboratories at Johns Hopkins University. We will view the shared rock preparation spaces as well as the mass spectrometer cluster, which includes the LA-ICP-MS lab (laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer) and the IRMS lab (isotope ratio mass spectrometer). Both of these labs focus on elemental analysis of rocks, sediments, and minerals to answer geologic questions.
Our trip leader is Dr. Dana Brenner, manager for both of these labs. Her goal is to help us understand how to date minerals and rocks, which leads us to plate tectonic processes and the timing of events in geologic time (e.g., mountain building), and to measure the composition of materials such as rocks, sediments, or minerals to understand the environment in which those materials formed.
Dr. Brenner is a research scientist with both geology and general environmental science interests. Her research focuses on understanding chemical and geochemical processes in the environment. She uses a combination of laboratory experimentation, fieldwork, and computational modeling to connect micro-scale reactions to macro-scale natural processes. Her research projects range from evaluating metamorphic thermal signatures with carbonate clumped isotopes to quantifying watershed-scale denitrification.
3300 San Martin Drive
Baltimore, MD 21218