This
proposal established a Research Experiences for Undergraduates site at
the
Arkansas-Oklahoma Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, jointly run by the
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and OSU. Twelve undergraduate students are
placed into research groups which involve chemists, biologists, geologists,
physicists and mechanical engineers who are interested in the biological and
geological processes occurring on Mars, the geological evolution of asteroids,
and the design and construction of equipment to be placed on missions. Research
projects make use of the Andromeda planetary environmental chamber at the
University of Arkansas, as well as the OSU’s electron microprobe.
In the
summer of 2003,
Dustin Trail used the OSU electron microprobe to
compositionally analyze and X-ray element map the
oldest mineral grains ever found
on Earth. Click here to see Dustin's poster discussing
his research. This summer,
Kelli
Wakefield is using the machine to compare lunar and terrestrial
anorthosites.
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