Geo-thermo-chronology (GTC)

The rock-crushing and pulverizing laboratory is the first step of the GTC sample preparation and analytical chain. This step consist of crushing, pulverizing, sieving , as well as Gemini shaking table hydrodynamic separation - of rock and sediment samples mainly for the ISTerre research teams and occasionally for external laboratories.
The laboratory is composed of : Jaw crusher (Dragon Babitless) Disk pulverizer (Fritsch) Agate crusher ((Tema industrie/Siebtechnik) fine granulometry (…)

Since 2006, ISTerre is equipped with a laboratory dedicated to the extraction of cosmogenic nuclides. This platform is currently operational for beryllium 10 (10Be) and aluminum 26 (26Al). Technical support The laboratory meets the demands in the frame of projects developed at ISTerre and its national and international partners with respect to Earth surface processes.
The laboratory is composed of two rooms to maintain a high level of quality and security conform to international standards (…)

The mineral separation laboratory is dedicated to the separation of light and heavy minerals of rock and sediment samples from based on magnetic and density properties. Mineral separations are mainly done for fission-track dating and geochemical/mineralogical analyses.

Fission Track (FT) thermochronology is a method for reconstructing the time-temperature histories of exhumed upper crustal rocks.
FT analysis is based on damage (tracks) caused by the spontaneous fission of 238U. This element is naturally concentrated in some minerals (apatite and zircon), which are the main targets of the FT method.
Our laboratory is composed of two rooms : A sample preparation room, A sample preparation room.
It is equipped for picking, mounting (resin pad or (…)

(U-Th)/He geo-thermo-chronometry exploits the decay of the isotopes 238U, 235U, 232Th and 147Sm, the production of associated alpha particles (4He) and the temperature-dependent diffusion of 4He through a crystal lattice. The (U-Th)/He method can be applied to geological problems operating over 0.8 to >1000 Ma. At ISTerre, the (U-Th)/He platform focuses on the dating of apatite, hematite, goethite, magnetite and spinel crystals.
Samples are prepared by extraction of datable crystals (…)