Tools
Laboratories | Instruments
| Software
Laboratories
Atmospheric Radiation and Cloud Station (ARCS)
develops and tests
parameterizations of important atmospheric processes, particularly cloud
and radiative processes, for use in atmospheric models and is achieved
through a combination of field measurements and modeling studies in three
Pacific locations. READ MORE in pdf format
Exploratory Studies Facility at Yucca Mountain
The facility has tunnels
that are 7.8 km in length and 2.8 km in length and include eight testing
alcoves, five test niches, and various other locations within the drifts.
Scientists conduct research throughout the facility to explore issues
in moisture monitoring, air permeability, percolation, seepage, and
rock mechanics.
One alcove is dedicated to testing the changes that gas and water composition,
rock mineralogy, rock mechanics, and hydrology experience during a long-term
heating cycle to temperatures expected during repository operations.
Geochemistry and Geomaterials Research Laboratory (GGRL)
analytical
and experimental facilities for understanding earth materials and earth
systems: solids (composition and mineralogy), fluids, gases, computational
geochemistry and mineralogy, and laser ablation for looking at trace
elements in solids at the 10 micron level.
o X-ray Diffraction Laboratory
o X-ray Fluorescence Laboratory
o Light Stable Isotope Laboratory
o Thermal Analysis Instrumentation
o Electron Microscopy Laboratory
o Scanning Electron Microscope
o Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer
o Gas Spectrometer
o Gas Chromatographs
o Optical Equipment
o Wet Chemistry Laboratory
Geographical Information System Laboratory (GISLab)
designed to
be a geospatial information resource for LANL and for external users
of geospatial data, GISLab was established as an umbrella organization
after the Cerro Grande wildfire in 2000 to include the Facility for
Information Management, Analysis, and Display (FIMAD) and the Cerro
Grande wildfire Rehabilitation Project (CGRP) GIS project.
Ecological Greenhouse
The EES-2 Ecological Greenhouse currently
houses experiments on tobacco growth and native plant survival in marginal
soils, as well as studies of nutrient flow between plants and soils.
These efforts are collaborations between EES and B Divisions. The greenhouse
also houses a growth chamber for small-scale experiments that require
control of light, temperature, and humidity. Future studies include
research into the dynamics of rapid vegetation shifts that are expected
throughout the southwest and are observed in various ecotones, the interfaces
between ecosystems. Rapid ecosystem responses to drought, climate change,
and/or other disturbances like fire are observed today in northern New
Mexico's semiarid landscapes and throughout the world.
Infrasound Monitoring Laboratory
Los Alamos' acoustic-infrasound
capabilities extend to frequencies as low as 0.02 Hz (at room temperature
this corresponds to a wave length of approximately 10 miles). This capability
is part of the Infrasound Calibration Laboratory a component of DOE's
Ground-based Nuclear Explosion Monitoring Program. The heart of the
infrasound laboratory is a unique chamber that performs calibrations
over the passband of 0.02®4.0 Hzãsignal levels that could
be affected by several minutes to variations in atmospheric pressure
if microphone calibrations were done in isolation.
LA Dynamic Stress Stimulation Laboratory for Enhanced Porous Fluid
Flow Studies (DSSL)
a unique facility designed to study the effects
of low frequency stress waves on permeability and multi-phase fluid
flow in rock core samples. If this phenomenon can be understood and
harnessed it will lead to improved technologies for enhancing oil production
and groundwater remediation.
LA Seismic Network Station (LASN)
aids in seismic verification research
and monitors quakes for LANL; LASN station data is the only instrumental
seismic data available for earthquakes that occur in northern New Mexico.
LIDAR Laboratory and Equipment (LIDAR) - Small-Scale Atmospheric Imaging
Laser applications have a long history at LANL, and one of the more
innovative of these has been the development of a mobile, scanning Raman
lidar system, which unlike backscatter lidar systems, measures photons
emitted by stimulated water vapor molecules in the atmosphere. The combination
of these measurements with the simulation capabilities of HIGRAD presents
an extremely powerful tool for understanding the behavior of the atmospheric
surface layer and its interactions with the underlying vegetation or
other surface characteristics.
Light Stable Isotope Laboratory
EES-6 has a new Micromass IsoPrime
Continuous-Flow Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer. This instrument is
a highly automated, high throughput system that represents the cutting
edge in continuous-flow light stable isotope mass spectrometry, which
can gather various measurements on oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen
isotopes in waters, carbonates, soils, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC),
bulk organic materials, etc. This system assists in studies of carbon
sequestration, water cycles, and the support of ocean modeling efforts,
as well as biogeochemical studies, potentially for threat reduction,
for contaminant tracing, and potentially to measure isotopically labeled
compounds used in biological studies.
Luminescence Geochronology Laboratory (LGL)
currently the only facility
in the North America to have single-grain OSL measurement capacity;
also capable of drawing on the vast resources and expertise at LANL
in environmental radiation monitoring and dosimetry. EES-10 houses the
following specialized equipment, which is used to date geologic materials
and help to understand natural processes and their rates of evolution.
o Riso DA-15 Automated TL/LGL Reader with on-board Sr-90 beta source
and single-grain measurement subsystem. The DA-15 is a self-contained,
automated instrument for luminescence dating and retrospective dosimetry
research.
o Riso GM-25-5 multi-sample low-level beta counter. The GM-25-5 is used
to determine beta dose rate from soil samples in the lab in support
of luminescence dating research.
o Eberline E-600 and various probes. The E-600 is used for in-situ field
assessment of beta and gamma dose rates in support of luminescence dating
research. Non-linear Elastic Laboratory
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP)
Yucca Mountain Characterization Site - the nation's first long-term
geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive
waste. Analytical
Instruments Highlights
Chemin
CHEMIN, a combined CHEMical and MINeralogic analyzer, will
play an important role in space exploration; after further miniaturization,
it will be included in future space probes to determine the elemental
composition and minerology of planets and other extraterrestrial bodies.
Light Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometer System
This instrument is
a highly automated, high throughput system that represents the cutting
edge in continuous-flow light stable isotope mass spectrometry, which
can gather various measurements on oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen
isotopes in waters, carbonates, soils, dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC),
bulk organic materials, etc. This system assists in studies of carbon
sequestration, water cycles, and the support of ocean modeling efforts,
as well as biogeochemical studies, potentially for threat reduction,
for contaminant tracing, and potentially to measure isotopically labeled
compounds used in biological studies.
Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS)
scientists can now point
a flashlight-sized laser device at a soil sample in the field or taken
from the ground and determine how much carbon the sample contains. LIBS
works by firing a brief, very intense pulse of laser light at a surface.
The laser beam vaporizes a spot on the target sample that's roughly the
size of a pencil point. A small spotting scope mounted near the laser
source captures light emitted from the vaporized area and directs it to
a spectral analyzer.
Software
and Visualization Tools
HIGRAD and FIRETEC - recent advances in numerical modeling of small-scale
phenomena in the atmosphere are based on two models, the HIgh GRADient
applications model, HIGRAD, and a physics-based wildfire-behavior model,
FIRETEC. These codes have allowed simulations of atmospheric phenomena
at very high spatial resolution on LANL's supercomputers. Results from
the application of HIGRAD/FIRETEC have greatly increased the physical
understanding of atmospheric flows in the presence of strong heat sources
and topographic obstacles. READ MORE in pdf format
Mesh Generation for
Geological Applications - LaGriT is a software tool for generating, editing
and optimizing multi-material unstructured finite element grids (triangles
and tetrahedra); it also maintains the geometric integrity of complex
input volumes, surfaces, and geologic data and produces an optimal grid
(Delaunay, Voronoi) elements, and has many unique features. GO TO SITE
MC3D - Mantle Convection Three Dimensions
MC3D is a computational fluid dynamics code for solving the equations
associated with convection in Earth's mantle.
MC3D solves the momentum and energy equation for an incompressible,
zero Reynolds number, infinite Prandtl number fluid in three dimensional
Cartesian geometry. The momentum equation is solved using a spectral
decomposition and relaxation on each spectral component. The energy
equation is solved using finite difference methods with a tensor diffusion
correction. MC3D is parallel and runs on Unix and Linux cluster computers.
A unique feature of MC3D is an implementation of mobile surface plates
which allows one to study the dynamic interaction of mantle convection
and plate tectonics. FEHM
FEHM (finite-element heat and mass-transfer
code) was originally developed at Los Alamos in the early 1980s to simulate
geothermal and hot dry rock reservoirs. This code has been used to model
other contaminant transport problems at over 100 sites around the world.
GO TO SITE
| 
