Geochemistry Laboratory at Ashland University

The Fran and Warren Rupp Laboratory houses rock preparation equipement and instrumentation. AU also has and extensive collection of rocks, minerals, and fossils. Rock Preparation Automated Thin Section Machine Shatter Box and Large Jaw Crusher Thin Section Cut-off Saw and Thin Section Grinder Large Rock Saw Rock Hydraulic Splitter Drying Oven Intrumenation Atomic Absorption Spectrometer Ion Exchange Chromatography X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer Polarizing Microscope Back to Facilities Page Back to Chemistry Department Home Page Back to Geology Department Home Page
Atomic Absorption Spectrometer SpectrAA 220FS (Varian) Equipped with Graphite Furnace, Autosampler, SIPS, and VGA. This instrument is used to detect metals in samples at a concentration of 1 part per million and lower. List of Instruments
X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Spectrometer that is used to detect the elemental make-up of solid rock, mineral, soil, synthetic polymer, biological material and more. List of Instruments
Ion Exchange Chromatography Dionex This instrument separates molecules based on the electrical charge that they posses. It detects the molecules by electrochemical and conductivity detection. List of Instruments
Polarizing Microscopes The department has four polarizing microscopes that are used to examine thin sections of rocks and minerals. List of Instruments
Automated Thin Section Machine This is used to make thin sections (30 microns thick) of rocks and minerals to examine them under the microscope. List of Instruments
Shatter Box (left) and Large Jaw Crusher These are used to reduce rock and mineral samples to powders so that they can be analyzed for their chemical composition by X-ray Fluorescence, Atomic Absorption, or Ion Chromatography. List of Instruments
Thin Section Cut-off Saw and Thin Section Grinder These are used to make thin sections (30 microns thick) of rocks and minerals to examine them under the microscope. List of Instruments
Large Rock Saw This 18" diameter rock saw is used to cut rocks as large as 8" in diameter for further examination by other equipment List of Instruments
Rock Hydraulic Splitter This is used to break rock samples down to smaller sizes for examination by other equipment. List of Instruments
Drying Oven Used for drying rocks and soils before analysis by other equipment. List of Instruments

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