Incorporating Stable-Isotope Geochemistry in Undergraduate Laboratory Courses

Undergraduate students rarely have an opportunity to learn about, and have hands-on experience with, stable-isotope geochemistry even though this subdiscipline of geoscience is widely used in numerous fields, including petrology, geochemistry, hydrogeology, environmental geology, and paleoclimatology. A common misperception is that the equipment needed to make stable-isotope extractions is expensive, difficult to operate and maintain, and inaccessible to undergraduate students. In fact, it is possible to make stable-isotope extractions with minimal training on equipment that is easily assembled, relatively inexpensive (costing between eight and twelve thousand dollars, excluding a mass spectrometer), and easy to maintain. Here we provide a list of parts, equipment, and instructions needed to build a vacuum extraction line that can be used for the analysis of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen isotopes from carbonates and water. We have incorporated stable-isotope laboratory exercises into four undergraduate cou...