Equipment
Geoscience majors at HWS have access to state-of-the-art sedimentary research equipment for use in the field and lab.
Shared Field Equipment:
William Scandling, our 65-ft Research Vessel with crane, winch with - 500 m. ¼" cable, DGPS, depth finders, radar, radios, cell phone, Captain and crew, etc.
JB Snow, our 25-ft Pontoon Boat, trailer, 4 kW, 220V Yamaha generator, winch with 250 m. of ¼" cable, Lowrance LCX-104 DGPS/WAAS depthfinder.
Field Equipment Deployable from the William Scandling and the JB Snow:
- Sea Bird SBE-25 CTD - Electronic conductivity, temperature, depth profiler with stainless steel cage, pump (SBE-5T), and dissolved oxygen (SBE 43), pH (SBE 18), fluorescence (WETLabs ECO-FLU), turbidity (WETLabs ECO-FLU), and light (PAR) intensity (Biospherical PAR, QSP 2300) sesnors.
- Sea Bird SBE-19 CTD's - Electronic conductivity, temperature, depth profilers with stainless steel cages, dissolved oxygen and pH sensors and PC computer for communications. One CTD also has a SeaTech 25" path-length transmissometer. (2)
- Standard limnologic and oceanographic equipment including secchi disks, plankton nets (80 and 150 micron mesh), sediment sieves, - 1.7 and 10 liter General Oceanics Niskin water sample bottles, LaMotte chemical analysis kits, microscope with digital display on laptop, pH meters, conductivity meters, thermometers, etc.
- Piston Corers (ETH and Alpine designs), Gravity/Piston Corer (Benthos) & Grab Samplers (two standard ponar dredges)
Aanderaa RDCP 600 Doppler Current Profilers (3)
- Aanderaa RCM-4 and RCM-7 Current Meters
- Hugrun Seamon mini temperature recorders
- McLane PARAFLUX 78H-21, 21 Sample, Sediment Traps (5)
- EdgeTech's X-Star Subbottom High-Resolution (1 to 12 kHz) Seismic Profiling System
- EdgeTech's AS-600 Side-Scan SONAR (50 or 200 kHz)
- Navigation Marker Buoys for Deployed Instrument Arrays
Other Field Equipment:
- Trimble Pathfinder Pro DGPS System
- Handheld GPS units, Garmin GPS76 WAAS handheld GPS receivers (7)
- Speedtech Depthmate depth sounders (6)
- Marsh-McBirney Model 2000 Flowmate Portable flow meters (2)
- ISCO Portable Water Sampler Model 6712 with 24, 1-L bottles
- An array of HWS Data Loggers
- Standard Field Geology gear including Bruntons, Silvas, rock hammers, sledge hammers, tents, sleeping bags, etc.
- Conductivity, DO, pH, bailers, stream flow (pigmy) and other handheld meters for field work
- YSI/Endeco Water Quality Profiler & Meteorological Station: EMM-2500 Buoy Platform, with wind speed and direction, air temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, and solar radiation sensors and 6600-D Multi-Parameter Water Quality Logger with depth, conductivity, temperature, fluorescence, and turbidity probes.
Geoscience Analytical and Computer Equipment:
- Costech CHNS Elemental Analyzer
- Sartorius CP2P Microbalance
- Beckman Coulter LS 230 Laser Diffraction grain-size analyzer
- Dionix DX-120 Ion Chromatograph & Autosampler
- Rigaku Multiflex X-Ray Diffractometer
- Labconco 4.5 Freeze-Dry System
- SPEX sample mill/pulverizer
- McCrone Micronizing Mill
- Vreeland Spectroscope
- Genesys 10-vis Spectrophotometer
- Spectronix 21D, 10-cm pathlength spectrophotometers
- Ohmichron RaPID enzyme immunosorbent assay for atrazine and other triazines
- Bartington MS-2 Magnetic Susceptibility meter with detection loop
- Digico Spinner Magnetometer
- Schonstedt AD-demagnetizer with six-axis spinner
- Leica DMR phase contrast and MZ8 microscopes with analog photographic system
- Leitz, Olympus, Bausch and Lomb and other petrographic microscopes
- Windows Computer lab (Gateway desktops) with GIS (ArcGIS 9.1) capabilities
- IBM ThinkPad laptop wireless computers in mobile cart with ArcGIS capabilities (15)
- HP DesignJet 755CM 3ft-wide color plotter
- HP DesignJet 750C Plus 3ft-wide color plotter
- Various color and black & white laser and deskjet printers
- Summasketch II (2x2 ft) digitizing tablets (7)
- Various analytical balances, drying ovens, muffle furnaces, refrigerators, freezers, etc.
- Various rock saws, rock crushers, sand sieves, thin section making equipment.
Geoscience & Environmental Studies Research Lab Space:
- Meteorological Research Lab with PC Windows and Lynx based work stations.
- Computer Research Lab with dedicated PC workstations, 4x6-ft digitizer, laser and dot-matrix printers, and (2) 3-ft wide HP plotters.
- Hydrogeochemistry Research Lab for routine limnological wet chemistry and a separate space for the Ion Chromatograph.
- Sedimentology and Paleoclimatology Lab for routine sediment preparation and a separate space for the CHNS analyzer and Laser particle size analyzer, and other for warm storage of field equipment.
- 30x40-ft Pole Barn to store the pontoon boat and associated field equipment.
Get Involved
The Hot Spot is a student-run organization that may be of interest to students studying geoscience.
For more information about these organizations or to learn about starting your own geoscience-themed club, contact Cully Seamans (seamans@hws.edu) in the Office of Student Activities.