The Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Cape Town has just this year undertaken a major refurbishment project of the existing clean laboratories, bringing this facility up to world-class status. The entire facility operates under new clean-air supply and acid-resistant extraction systems, with 12 meters of new, non-metal laminar flow exhaust hoods for improved ultra-clean sample preparation. This generational infrastructure project, funded by the UCT Faculty of Science, ensures the continued successful operation of the only current multi-collector inductively-coupled plasma mass spectrometer facility in Africa.
I was appointed as a Lecturer in this department in July 2015, with a clear research goal to bring the existing laboratory facilities up to full capacity to perform precise U-series (U-Pb and U-Th) dating.
The U-series laboratory at UCT will be the first of its kind in the country, indeed in Africa, which is why we are calling it the 'African U-series Lab' or 'AUL' for short. This lab will provide the opportunity for local South African students and researchers to produce high quality age data for a variety of carbonate deposits and receive the training and skills they would have otherwise had to leave the country to obtain.
I was appointed as a Lecturer in this department in July 2015, with a clear research goal to bring the existing laboratory facilities up to full capacity to perform precise U-series (U-Pb and U-Th) dating.
The U-series laboratory at UCT will be the first of its kind in the country, indeed in Africa, which is why we are calling it the 'African U-series Lab' or 'AUL' for short. This lab will provide the opportunity for local South African students and researchers to produce high quality age data for a variety of carbonate deposits and receive the training and skills they would have otherwise had to leave the country to obtain.
