The Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded a $1.5 million grant to the University of Hawaii to support the creation of a new cosmochemistry laboratory at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) in Honolulu.

The new facility will feature an ion microprobe, an instrument that allows not only determination of the trace element contents of microscopically small samples but also their isotopic compositions, which the university hopes will be the catalyst that ignites research among cosmochemists and astronomers into the origin of the solar system, including Earth. Cosmochemistry is an interdisciplinary science connecting such fields as meteoritics, astrophysics, mineralogy, and isotope studies; planetary geology, geophysics, and petrology; and studies of interstellar organic materials, early life on Earth, and geochemistry of Martian meteorites.

"With the funding for the Cameca ims 1280 ion microprobe secured, it will be possible for our research group to really make a quantum leap forward in the field of cosmochemistry," said SOEST dean Klaus Keil. "We have a stellar group of core investigators and are particularly excited that we were able to add Dr. Gary Huss, formerly of Arizona State University, and Dr. Kazu Nagashima, formerly of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, both world-renowned experts in ion microprobe analysis and cosmochemistry, to our team."