TIME Lab

Tree Ring Innovations in Mass Spectrometry for Earth Systems
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About

The Time Lab is a next generation facility which builds on a long tradition of international leadership in both radiocarbon and tree-ring science at the University of Arizona. Housed in the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, where the scientific methods of dendrochronology were pioneered in the early 1900's, the TIME Lab is equipped with a MICADAS radiocarbon dating system and laser ablation stable isotope facility. Building on strong foundations of the UArizona Radiocarbon laboratory, established in 1954 and home to the journal 'Radiocarbon' since 1989, new investment by both the National Science Foundation and the University of Arizona has combined expertise in the two most accurate and widely used dating techniques for the last 40,000 years into a single state of the art facility. We aim to push the boundaries of what can be achieved through high-resolution AMS and isotopic measurements of tree-rings; synchronizing multi-proxy, global scale chronologies; reconstructing past climate, solar forcing and shifts in Earth's systems. The lab will link our past, present and future through carbon cycle studies and provide precise dates for a wide range of carbon based samples.