Facilities

The primary goal of AEON is the cultivation of a high-level, internationally-connected, scientific research and learning environment promoting a modern interdisciplinary view of our Earth, and of Africa in particular.

In order to address this goal, AEON has recently established a set of cutting-edge analytical facilities in EarthLAB that significantly enhance the ability of scientists in a wide range of disciplines to carry out analyses and investigations that have previously required collaboration with laboratories and scientists outside Africa. The new laboratory facilities of AEON are unique in Africa and will, for the first time, offer an African "home" for young scientists from across the continent in which to analyse and calibrate the archives of Earth and life materials found in their own "backyard". AEON has also established computer facilities in EarthBRAIN for the storage, analysis and presentation of Earth Systems datasets using numerical modelling, GIS and geospatial statistical techniques.

EarthLAB

The purchase of our new equipment – two Multi-collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometers (MC-ICP-MS) with laser-ablation facilities on both instruments, a new Electron Microprobe, and a Rare Gas Mass Spectrometer – has been made possible by a grant from the Innovation Fund of the Department of Science and Technology. The two MC-ICP-MS instruments and the Electron Microprobe are installed, commissioned and in regular operation. They are all available for use by or for University, Parastatal, and Industry scientists and the AEON EarthLAB will be operated as a National and African Facility. The fourth instrument (the Rare Gas Mass Spectrometer) will be installed and commissioned at a later date.