Prof. Willy Guenthner’s (U-Th)/He lab is featured in a new AGU EOS article highlighting NSF support to geochronology and thermochronology labs that serve the broad geoscience community. As a part of this initiative, the lab will have a new full-time research scientist and manager, Linda Angeloni, who will be starting in January 2019.
Thermochronology quantifies the thermal evolution of rocks through time, with low-temperature thermochronology being a key tool for constraining the dates and rates of uplift and erosion in mountain belts, plateaus, and cratons. The Illinois Helium Analysis Laboratory (HAL) offers visitors and users access to all aspects of the (U-Th)/helium (He) dating process. Current research in the lab is focused on both expanding the range of (U-Th)/He applications (such as Proterozoic thermal histories of cratons and orogens) and advancing fundamentals of the method through laboratory-based investigations, such as He diffusion kinetics.
