Chemistry Laboratory |
| Staff Liaison: Mitch Malone |
R. Stax, one of the Leg 167 organic geochemists, agreed to conduct a comparative study between Rock-Eval and GHM on a time-available basis. It was stressed that safety and normal shipboard procedures and analyses should take precedence over this study.
The LWG recommended that ODP/TAMU obtain materials to convert the CHNS to run in CN mode only. However, such a conversion will mean that switching from CN to CNS modes will not be possible or desirable during a leg. The organic geochemist or co-chiefs will be required to notify the lab officer before their leg so that any changes necessary can be made during port call.
A prototype still needs to be fabricated and tested for the proposed soft sediment sampler. The design of a device to sample more consolidated material is being pursued.
The applications group has begun writing a Labview program for the coulometer and Cahn microbalance. A spare Cahn microbalance is being returned from the ship to enable software testing. Because of the limited bench space on the ship, implementation of JANUS and the abandonment of the 1032 database will need to occur before switching over to the new software.
During Leg 164 attempts to link the AAS with a PC, to facilitate data transfer and storage, failed. It was concluded that to accomplish such a linkage would require a much greater level of effort than the LWG finds appropriate.
An upgrade of the HP Chemstation software is commercially available and can provide a number of improvements over the existing system. The most important of these improvements is the dynamic data exchange capability that can facilitate data transfer and storage. The current Chemstation software controls five pieces of equipment in the Chemistry Laboratory. All data being produced from this equipment are currently being hand entered into spreadsheets by technicians or scientists. Upgrading data capture capabilities toward the eventual elimination of hand entry of data is one of the highest priorities of this group. It is recommended that the HP Chemstation upgrade be acquired. This will require that the two 486 PCs currently running Chemstation be replaced with Pentiums (scheduled for Leg 166T).