User Research Facilities in the Earth Sciences

Synchrotron X-ray sources and pulsed neutron sources are getting brighter. This permits new opportunities for scattering, spectroscopy, and imaging studies of Earth materials and processes that were not possible a decade ago. The impact of these latest-generation facilities on Earth sciences research requiring nanometer- to micrometer-scale resolution is growing and will continue to grow as next-generation X-ray and neutron sources become available over the next six years. These facilities will include the world’s first X-ray free-electron lasers in the US (2009) and Europe (2012) and the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA (2006). In addition, five nanoscale science research centers are under con- struction in the US and will impact the emerging field of nanogeoscience.

Access to many of the world’s leading user facilities is easier than ever before, with web-based tutorials providing everything from instru- mental overviews and example applications to online safety training. Submission of proposals for experiment time at large, heavily subscribed facilities, including synchrotron and neutron sources, has been streamlined with web-based submission. Support, which is commonly the key to successful experiments, is provided by facility staff and experienced users, allowing new users to begin experiments with minimal experience. Increasingly Earth scientists are taking advantage of the wide range of unique instrumentation at user facilities. Here, we explain how you can, too.

National scientific user facilities are becoming increasingly available to many different scientific communities in a number of countries. There is a growing use of these facilities by Earth and environmental scien- tists to study a broad range of materials and processes under realistic P–T and environmental conditions at unprecedented levels of energy and spatial resolution and elemental and isotopic sensitivity. The results of these studies are providing new insights into biogeochemical processes operating at Earth’s surface as well as petrological, geochemical, and geophysical processes in Earth’s interior. The availability of national user facilities is changing scien- tific approaches and is leading to multidisciplinary studies that were not possible a decade ago.

User research facilities around the world offer tremendous opportunities for scientific experimentation by members of the Earth science com- munity. Synchrotron radiation sources, neutron sources, mass spec- trometers, and others represent a powerful force in tackling complex scien- tific problems. In these techniques, Earth materials are bombarded with beams of ions, subatomic particles and/or photons to learn the secrets of their properties and histories. Some of these methods can be applied to nanoscale materials with “desktop” instruments while others require macro- scopic samples and utilize large-scale devices residing in multiple buildings; and there is everything in between.

National and international communities of scientists from a variety of disciplines have been successful in convincing a growing number of countries to construct major user facilities that collectively serve these communities. These user facilities make possible experimental studies that cannot be done in individual investigator laboratories. In addition, they have created a new style of research, in which scientists working in shared facilities conduct studies that benefit from a merging of ideas and techniques from different disciplines. Earth science users of these facilities are growing in number and are benefiting greatly from the multidisciplinary interactions such facilities stimulate and from the unique experimental capabilities they provide.

The past several decades have seen an explosion in the availability of state-of-the-art research facilities, facilities that have been specifically constructed and operated for use by the general scientific community. Earth scientists have recognized the power of these methods for frontier research and are taking advantage of them in increasing numbers. “User- friendliness” is the key that makes these shared instruments very effective components in our arsenal of collaborative and interdisciplinary research tools.