EGU Blogs

Photo of the Week #49

Matt Herod October 19, 2015 Geochemistry, Nuclear Comments Closed

This week’s photo is from my personal research and shows a precipitate that I generated in the lab one day of AgI (silver iodide) for analysis of 129I by accelerator mass spectrometry.

I felt though that I wanted to verify the purity of the AgI so I quickly threw in on our scanning electron microscope to a) check the chemistry and b) take a picture. The image below shows an amalgam of AgI crystals with a scale of 20 microns at 600 times magnification.

By the way, to any fellow Canadians reading this post. Please go vote today and be a part of our democracy!!

By Matt Herod

Matt Herod is a Ph.D Candidate in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. His research focuses on the geochemistry of iodine and the radioactive isotope iodine-129. His work involves characterizing the cycle and sources of 129I in the Canadian Arctic and applying this to long term radioactive waste disposal and the effect of Fukushima fallout. His project includes field work and lab work at the André E. Lalonde 3MV AMS Laboratory. Matt blogs about any topic in geology that interests him, and attempts to make these topics understandable to everyone. Tweets as @GeoHerod.

About

The term geosphere is an all-encompassing word that incorporates just about every aspect of the earth sciences. This means that topics ranging from geophysics to geochemistry to geobiology are part of the geosphere. The blog Geosphere honours its namesake by covering any and every topic in the geosciences. The principal goal of Geosphere and its author, Matt Herod, is to make science clear for anyone that should stumble in and enhance awareness of the geosphere for all. With this in mind I encourage any who have questions to post, comment or email me.