In November Laura and I, loaded up with samples from a few folk in the geomicrobiology group, flew to California for beamtime at the Advanced Light Source synchrotron at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. We were met in Berkeley by Adriana Figueroa-Garcia, a beamline scientist from Diamond, who was kind enough to give us a generous portion of time on beamline 6.3.1 to perform L-edge spectroscopy and XMCD on a range of samples containing half of the top row of transition metals (Mn, Fe, Co, Ni and Cu).
Advanced Light Source, Berkeley, CAAlso present at the lab were groups of wild turkeys and deer that hadn’t realised, or didn’t care, that there was a particle accelerator and numerous physical sciences lab in their habitat. There were rumours of mountain lions prowling the hills around the lab too, probably looking for some turkey to snack on.
A cancellation on beamline 4.0.2 due to technical issues –an occurrence that hasn’t happened in 16 years we were told- meant Laura and I had time to get the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transport) to San Francisco and spent the whole day wondering around after a brunch of burger/Mexican food and beer. We caught some good views of the city and the Golden Gate Bridge and got our feet wet in the Bay, one of us with our shoes still on which was a bit uncomfortable for the rest of the day.
At work inside the ALS
The shifts on the beam were relatively benign, both early and late risers were accommodated for and the majority of the data was sound. A few left-field analyses were thrown our way- who’d have thought barium could be so easily confused for cobalt? But with Adriana’s help we bosched through all the samples in good time giving us a chance to visit some pretty awesome restaurants in downtown Berkeley each evening and on the last night a bar that served some aggressively strong beer.
Sul Mulroy
In October, Jon, Gina, Natalie and I travelled to Belgium for a MIND (Microbiology in Nuclear Waste Disposal) advanced course in geomicrobiology in radioactive waste disposal. The course was provided by SCK·CEN, a Belgian nuclear research centre based in the city of Mol. The course brought together researchers from over 10 MIND institutions to share […]
Recently several group members attended the 8th Actinide XAS conference (AnXAS 2017) held at The Queen’s College, the University of Oxford. AnXAS is a three day workshop showcasing speciation, techniques and facilities for radioactive materials at various synchrotron light sources. The Queen’s college is an impressive warren of grand buildings, gardens and passageways. Although there […]
As part of an on-going programme concerning rapid developments in Genomics and Bioinformatics, I recently visited the Wilkins Geomicrobiology Lab at Ohio State University for a bioinformatics training course. The Wilkins Lab is led by Dr Mike Wilkins, who actually has his roots in the Manchester Geomicrobiology group where Prof Jonathan Lloyd guided him through […]
The British Geological Survey and the Natural Environment Research Council recently ran an advanced skills training course to learn about new techniques in mineral exploration. The CoG3 project team were asked to apply, and myself and Sul from the Geomicro group were lucky enough to be allocated places. The course started at the BGS headquarters […]