Geochemistry and Analytical

Bucknell University and the Department of Geology maintain several well-equipped analytical laboratories that give us the flexibility to work with projects ranging from surface and ground water analysis to rock and mineral analysis. other facilities nearby in the Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Engineering Labs extend our capabilities and give our students and faculty the opportunity to collaborate on research projects.

Chris Flood demonstrates the precipitation of Iron (III) Oxide at an acid mine drainage site near Shamokin, Pennsylvania.

Please scroll down through the list below to see some of our analytical facilities:

Aqueous Geochemistry:

The Geology Department has several labs that emphasize the analysis of surface or near surface waters. Students and faculty perform analyses in the field as well as back in the lab. Some of this equipment includes:

Hach portable water quality system with a DREL 2000 spectrophotometer;

Hach Acid Mine Drainage Test Kit;

Orion and Hanna pH meters;

Digital Thermometers;

YSI Model 52 Dissolved Oxygen Meter;

Hach and Hanna Conductivity meters;

YSI model 33 S-C-T (salinity, conductivity, temperature) Meter;

Field Mixed Flow Reactor for determination of reaction rates.

Field Mixed Flow Reactor and on-site analysis of the iron concentration in settling ponds at an acid mine drainage treatment system near Clarion, PA

The Environmental Science Laboratory:

The Environmental Science Laboratory is located in the Dana Engineering Building and is run by Dr. Elaine D. Keithan, Laboratory Director. This laboratory is a service lab which supports four distinct but interrelated activities:

Undergraduate laboratory work;
Advances courses within departments;
Undergraduate and graduate student research, and;
Faculty research.

This laboratory is a complex of four rooms each with a different focus. There is a Water analysis area devoted to "wet" chemical analyses; a Unit Operations area with bench and pilot scale equipment to provide design data for water and wastewater treatment facilities; an Instrument Area which contains the major analytical instrumentation; and an Instructional Area for viewing laboratory and lecture materials.

Major Analytical Instrumentation
in the Environmental Science Lab Includes:

Thermo Jarrell Ash Trace Scan Plasma Spectrometer, using an ICAP (Inductively Coupled Argon Plasma) emission source, and Instrumentation Laboratories Video 12 Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer, both of which analyze for major and trace elements;

Dionex DX500 Ion Chromatograph which can be used to analyze major cations and anions;

O.I. Analytical Total Organic Carbon Analyzer;

Hewlett Packard 5890A Gas Chromatograph;

Dr. Keithan also maintains a wide variety of field instruments that faculty and students may check out for their various teaching and research projects. These include pH, conductivity and dissolved oxygen meters; a Hydrolab; a digital current velocity meter; and digital titrators, just to name a few.

The Instrumentation Room of the
Environmental Science Laboratory

Dr. Keithan adjusting the torch on the ICP

Dave Sobeck injects a sample into the Ion Chromatograph

Fluid Inclusion:

The Geology Department operates a Fluid Inc. fluid inclusion instrument, consisting of a modified USGS heating/cooling fluid inclusion stage, Fluid Inc. Trendicator, and Panasonic video system mounted on a Leitz sm-lux pol binocular microscope. This instrument has been used recently in a student senior thesis project by Bill Bradfield, who studied the temperatures of Alleghanian deformation in the Silurian Bloomsburg Formation, in Lehigh Gap, Pennsylvania.

The modified USGS / Fluid Inc. fluid
inclusion stage

Dr. Mary Beth Gray places the copper cooling coil into the dewar filled with liquid nitrogen

X-Ray Diffraction:

Our X-ray Diffraction Lab provides us with important information pertaining to the identification of minerals and inorganic compounds. It is commonly used by our faculty and students for rock and mineral analysis and to identify the inorganic components of acid mine drainage sediments and municipal waste ash.

The instrumentation in the X-Ray lab consists of a Philips APD (automated powder diffraction) 3720 X-Ray diffractometer, interfaced with an IBM 750-P90 computer, running Philips PC-APD, PC-Identify, and Bob Reynold's NEWMOD software, PDF-2 (powder diffraction file database on CD-ROM, and an HP 1200c color ink jet printer.