A series of recent publications by CAS Earth & Environment researchers have focused on the field of garnet geochronology. The findings in this area were made possible by the National Science Foundation-funded BU-TIMS research facility. Funded in 2005, the lab is a regional center for high precision, thermal ionization mass spectrometry, primarily serving the academic geosciences community.
Recent publications include: a piece in Chemical Geology by Professor Ethan Baxter and CAS grad student Besim Dragovic titled “Using garnet to constrain the duration and rate of water-releasing metamorphic reactions during subduction: An example from Sifnos, Greece”; a piece in Earth & Planetary Science Letters by Prof Baxter and CAS grad student Anthony Pollington titled “High resolution Sm–Nd garnet geochronology reveals the uneven pace of tectonometamorphic processes”; an article in Chemical Geology by Prof Baxter and former BU TIMS Facility Lab Manager Jason Harvey titled “An improved method for TIMS high precision neodymium isotope analysis of very small aliquots (1–10 ng)”; and a piece in Chemical Geology by Baxter and Pollington titled “High precision microsampling and preparation of zoned garnet porphyroblasts for Sm–Nd geochronology.”