New Era for Geoscience in Ireland

The Irish Centre for Research in Applied Geosciences (iCRAG) and Trinity College Dublin have launched a micro-beam analytical laboratory – the iCRAG Lab@TCD – comprising high range electron and laser beam equipment for the characterisation of geoscience material. Funded by Science Foundation Ireland, the centre’s first dedicated scanning electron microscope, the TIGER, is a Pan-European collaboration of three leading manufacturers giving Irish researchers a cutting edge in applied and fundamental research.

Speaking at the launch, Prof. Kamber said, “The TIGER is a special type of scanning electron microscope, which we will use to investigate real-world rocks and environmental samples at sub-microscopic scale. This cutting edge analytical instrument has a wide array of detectors that allow the simultaneous determination of many properties, such as composition, luminescence and atomic arrangement. The TIGER also has software that can automatically recognise groups of minerals within a rock and map their mutual relationships. Most importantly, the TIGER can quantify the content of valuable metals in rocks in unprecedented detail. It will thus be used to develop new approaches to resource and energy efficiency.”

“Combining electron with laser beam analytical equipment in one facility gives iCRAG researchers the ability to study elemental fingerprints over 9 orders of magnitude in concentration” Prof. Kamber added, “This enables the team to tackle questions as broad as the cause of problematic aggregate in Irish housing estates, reconstructing the ocean temperature signal stored in deep coral or assessing the personal exposure of Dubliners to diesel particulate emissions.”

Dr Darrin Morrissey, Director of Programmes at Science Foundation Ireland, said, “The launch of the iCRAG Lab@TCD is a key development in Ireland’s Geoscience Research and represents a strategic investment of SFI into a facility that will help to address several societal challenges. Due to its geographic position and its bedrock geology, Ireland is an ideal testbed for new analytical solutions facing our society, such as resource efficiency, clean water supply and the energy transition. With the help of this investment, SFI is contributing to iCRAG researchers successfully competing for EU and other international funding.”