Post-holiday activities in the lab

There has been a flurry of activity in the rock mechanics lab now that we are all back from the holiday. Hannah has been making big strides in the paleothermometer project, cranking out up to four experiments per day. Next she will analyze the samples in the mass spectrometer.

And although Mandy had to return to Germany, Heather has been continuing to put jackets on her granite samples in anticipation of Mandy's return later this year. Those copper jackets (left) have to be pressed onto the sample by bringing both up to 60 MPa in the triax. The blue plastic makes a seal to hold the pressure internally.                                                                              And finally, I continued to work on the electronics for the ice rig by creating yet another panel. This one will allow us to splice into the signal coming from each of the load cells and LVDT, which will be extremely helpful once we start troubleshooting the apparatus.