Acquisition of Gas-mixing and TZM Furnaces and Associated Equipment: Experimental Petrology at Fayetteville State University

This award will equip an experimental petrology laboratory at Fayetteville State University that will be used in conjunction with the SENCR-MIC Electron microprobe to investigate the process of planetary assembly; engage under-represented groups in hypothesis-driven Earth Science research; and strengthen K-12 Earth Science education in southeastern North Carolina. Experiments conducted in the laboratory will generate new data that will facilitate a better understanding of how primitive meteorites, the compositions of which are assumed to represent that of the primitive solar nebula, behave during melting at pressures that approximate asteroid interiors during early solar system evolution. New data generated in the lab will help reconcile discrepancies that exist between observations and models of planetary formation.

Fayetteville State University is a historically black college/university (HBCU) that is a constituent member of the University of North Carolina system. It has an enrollment of ~6000 students, with females comprising over 70% of the student body and African-Americans comprising 73% of the student body. The presence of an experimental petrology laboratory on the campus will allow for the inclusion of underrepresented groups into Earth Science research with the goal of encouraging them to continue on to graduate studies. FSU was founded as a teacher training college and continues to serve in that role today. The nature of experimental petrology and the excitement that comes with hypothesis-driven and discovery-based research will serve to strengthen K-12 Earth Science education as teachers in training explore the boundaries of our knowledge through experimentation in the lab.