We had the honor of conducting isotope purification and quantification with Dr. Noah Planavsky and Dr. Dan Asael at Yale University’s Metal Geochemistry laboratory. It was an excellent adventure into the analytical and quantitative chemistry deep-end for M.S. Student Corey Palmer and visiting undergraduate researcher Raisa Islam. In spite of the learning curve, they were able to run column separation techniques to purify our samples. It was a great lesson learning how finicky column separation techniques can be!
 
Even better was to see the metal geochemistry laboratory’s bad-ass multicollector running in peak performance. It is a high precision instrument able to quantify differences in isotope ratios down below a tenth of a permil. Only a few universities across America have one operating in top shape with the ability to measure things like chromium isotopes. Although we weren’t able to get all of the data we wanted, we are happy to have made new friends in New Haven and look forward to going back for another visit in the near future.