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Laboratory Facilities

The Centre has a wide range of laboratories suites incorporating the following facilities:

» A soil and sediment analysis suite for the description and physical analysis of sediment sequences. Equipment and techniques include Micrometrics sedigraph and Malvern Mastersizer 2000 conventional sieve analysis, heavy mineral separations, and clast lithological analysis.

» A palaeoecological suite for the analysis of micro- and macrofossil samples by wet sieving; low- and high magnification microscopy forfossil identification. This suite also has a wet-sieving machine for processing of bulk samples for small vertebrate analysis, and drying cabinets for specimen preparation. The suite houses an extensive collections of literature (manuals and keys) and modern reference collections for the identification and classification of Coleoptera, Mollusca, pollen and spores, and plant macrofossils.

» A suite of laboratories for the drying, curing, gelling, and preparation of thin sections from unconsolidated sediments.

» A petrological and palaeoecological microscopy suite, with mainly Olympus research and teaching microscopes. Facilities exist for microphotography using standard film or digital formats. The laboratory also contains a petroscope and a digital image analysis facility.

» A geochronology suite for optically-stimulated luminescence and tephrochronology.

» Royal Holloway and OXford TephrochrOnology Research network RHOXTOR:

The RHOXTOR research network was inaugurated in 2008 to create an integrated focus group dedicated to the analysis and application of tephra studies, with special application to Europe, North Africa and adjacent seas and to the Quaternary stratigraphical record. It brings together colleagues with tephrochronological, volcanological and related expertise from the departments of Earth Sciences and Geography, at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Department of Earth Sciences and the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), at the University of Oxford. More information about tephra research and RHOXTOR group activities is available from http://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/rhoxtor/embed.php?File=index.html.

» PC and Macintosh computers for data handling. Additional facilities include map or diagram construction using ArcGIS system, and Adobe Illustrator computer graphics packages.

» A wide range of field equipment, including Topcon, theodolite, levels, and GPS surveying equipment. Drilling equipment includes Minuteman, Cobra, and percussion drills, and Russian corers. Water quality and soil testing equipment includes conductivity meters, pH meters and Paqualabs. Facilities are also available for tree-ring coring and Schmidt Hammer investigations.

» Students also have access to a college Scanning Electron Microscopy Unit and to certain isotopic analysis facilities in the adjacent Geology Department, including NERC & University of London joint-sponsored ICPA-ES, stable isotope and XRD equipment.  The Centre is also about to obtain a Ground Penetrating Radar system.

» Modern reference collection for the identification of mammal and fish fossils