John E. Yellen
BCS Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences
SBE Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences
Start Date:
September 1, 2003
Expires:
August 31, 2007 (Estimated)
Awarded Amount to Date:
$494295
Investigator(s):
Patrick Williams rwilliams@fieldmuseum.org (Principal Investigator)
Gary Feinman (Co-Principal Investigator) Philip Janney (Co-Principal Investigator) Meenakshi Wadhwa (Co-Principal Investigator)
Sponsor:
Field Museum of Natural History
1400 S LAKE SHORE DR
CHICAGO, IL 60605 312/665-7240
NSF Program(s):
MAJOR RESEARCH INSTRUMENTATION
Field Application(s):
Program Reference Code(s):
OTHR, 0000
Program Element Code(s):
1189
ABSTRACT
With support from a National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation award, Dr. P. Ryan Williams and his colleagues will establish an Elemental Analysis Laboratory (EAL) at The Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. The aim of the EAL is to integrate collections-based and original field research in the earth, planetary, and anthropological sciences. Principal research programs include 1) examining the archaeology of cultural production, interaction, and exchange in South America, Mesoamerica, Africa, and Oceania, 2) advancing the cause of material conservation of The Field Museum's world renowned natural history collections, 3) examining the formation and evolution of asteroids and planets through the analysis of meteorites, and 4) investigating magmatic processes in the Earth's mantle and crust through the analysis of oceanic and continental volcanic rocks.
The EAL will house a quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer with
a laser ablation system, which will permit the analysis of minor and trace elements of materials with minimal destructive impact, and a large-chambered scanning electron microscope with an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer for structural imaging, elemental mapping, and nondestructive identification of major and minor element compositions of specimens and artifacts. This facility, available to all museum research staff and collaborating faculty and students from nearby universities, will make The Field Museum a leading center for natural history materials analysis in northern Illinois. Moreover, it will allow the Museum to much more fully exploit the chemical and structural information stored in its anthropological, geological/ paleontological, zoological and botanical collections.
The projects enabled by the EAL integrate research and training of undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology and the earth and planetary sciences, and the results of this research will educate hundreds of thousands of school children and millions of visitors annually through the Museum's exhibition and public education programs. These projects incorporate scholars from a diversity of backgrounds, and the EAL will serve as a resource to many Chicago area institutions of higher education. Dr. Williams and his colleagues will teach classes employing the EAL through reciprocal agreements with local universities, and the EAL will serve as a research tool for students throughout the Chicago academic community. Finally, the results of this research on cultural interaction and exchange, the evolution of the earth and the life on it, and the earth's place in the wider universe, are all extremely relevant to understanding where humankind came from and where society is headed.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
(Showing: 1 - 1 of 1).
Martin, RD; MacLarnon, AM; Phillips, JL; Dussubieux, L; Williams, PR; Dobyns, WB.
"Comment on "The brain of LB1, Homo floresiensis","
SCIENCE,
v.312,
2006,
(Showing: 1 - 1 of 1).
Please report errors in award information by writing to: awardsearch@nsf.gov.
