Supported projects

NeoCarb aims to establish a corpus of new reference materials (RMs) for stable isotope measurements in carbonate minerals — a metrological framework essential to a broad and interdisciplinary scientific community including geochemists, palaeoclimatologists, palaeoceanographers, archaeologists, biologists who use various isotopic tracers (δ¹³C, δ¹⁸O, Δ¹⁷O, Δ47 and Δ48) to reconstruct and understand palaeoclimates, marine and continental palaeoenvironments, and the natural and human environment of ancient societies… These tracers rely on a hierarchy of international reference materials (IRMs), distributed by various institutions including IAEA. Several of these IRMs are nearing exhaustion (NBS18, ETH-3, ETH-1, ETH-2), some present contamination issues, and we do not yet have fully-established RMs for the most recent of these tracers (Δ¹⁷O and Δ48). This situation is a well-known obstacle to inter-laboratory analytical reproducibility, and solving this is a clearly identified objective of the relevant scientific communities. NeoCarb will address these challenges by producing several new RMs from already-identified materials (2 optical calcites strongly depleted in 18O to replace NBS18, 1 chalk block from Champagne as an emergency, short-term substitute for ETH-3, 1 Antarctic calcite with an extremely cold Δ47 signature (< 0 °C), 2 calcites heated to 600 °C to replace ETH-1/2). National RMs complementing the above will also be produced to meet a long-identified need within the RéGEF Stable Isotopes Network. NeoCarb, conducted in close collaboration with IAEA and national and international scientific communities, will ultimately produce certified RMs, documented in an open and traceable manner, freely accessible to the relevant communities, fostering the accuracy/reproducibility of scientific analyses produced worldwide for decades to come.

Legend: A block of Champagne chalk intended to serve as a new reference material for Δ₄₇ analyses