Facilities
ESE laboratories and facilities are housed in the Linde+Robinson Laboratory for Global Environmental Science and in other nearby buildings of Caltech's Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. The laboratories are equipped with a wide variety of state-of-the-art instruments.
Environmental Chemistry and Technology Laboratory
In the Environmental Chemistry and Technology Laboratory, collimated sunlight from the Linde solar telescope is focused into photolysis reactors, where artificial photosynthesis processes are developed to convert water and carbon dioxide into energetic fuels.
Geochemistry Clean Room
Measurements of trace metals in the environment and precise dating of corals and cave deposits all require extremely clean conditions for processing samples. The clean room, custom designed for this purpose, is unlike any built earlier. It has air cleansed of almost all particles and has been constructed entirely from non-metallic materials. Measurements of corals and stalagmites in it reveal how climate has varied in Earth's past and how carbon cycles between the biosphere, the atmosphere, and the oceans.
Geochemistry Instrument Lab
The instrument lab houses three inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometers (ICP-MS). They are used to measure metal isotope ratios and Uranium-Thorium (U-Th) dates of samples that have been chemically processed in the clean room. They are also used to measure sulfur isotopes in the modern ocean and in ancient rocks to develop a quantitative understanding of how oxygen levels in the atmosphere have evolved over Earth's history.
Biogeochemical Laboratories
The Biogeochemical Laboratories provide facilities and instrumentation for measuring the abundance, identity, and stable-isotope composition (including 2H, 13C, 15N, 18O, and 34S) of organic and inorganic constituents in a variety of environmental sample types, including organisms, water, sediments, and rocks.
Atmospheric Chamber
The Atmospheric Chamber is designed for studies of the photochemical reactions of gaseous and particulate pollutants. In two large (1,000-cubic-foot) reaction chambers—the first of their kind when they were built—the chemical reactions that produce urban smog and atmospheric particles are investigated under precisely controllable conditions. They have revealed how the particles that make up smog form in the atmosphere. Research results obtained with them have been instrumental in designing effective air quality policies and in helping to understand the role of aerosols in climate.
Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemical Physics
In the Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemical Physics, the interactions of light with molecules in the atmosphere are investigated to elucidate how pollution forms and to measure the atmospheric concentration of aerosols and greenhouse gases. Techniques are developed for the global monitoring of the atmosphere from mobile ground-based laboratories and from space-based instruments.
High-Precision Spectroscopy Laboratory
The High-Precision Spectroscopy Laboratory is housed in a quiet room—a room with specially designed acoustic and electromagnetic insulation. Acoustic foam blocks sound waves and copper cladding around the entire room blocks electromagnetic waves. The noise-free environment allows us to achieve exquisite precision in laser measurements of radiative properties of greenhouse gases, aerosols, and atmospheric trace constituents: the properties of single molecules can be measured. The measurements are the basis for climate models and for planning satellite missions to measure the composition of the atmosphere from space.
Environmental Microbiology Laboratories
In the environmental microbiology laboratories, the diversity and metabolic activities of microorganisms from terrestrial and marine ecosystems are characterized through cultivation, microscopic imaging, metagenomics, and molecular and isotopic analysis. Researchers use an array of instruments, including anaerobic chambers, platforms for performing microfluidics-based analyses of the nucleic acid contents of environmental single cells, capillary sequencers, quantitative PCR, epifluorescence microscopes, and CAMECA secondary ion mass spectrometers available through the Center for Microanalysis.
High Performance Computing (HPC) Cluster
ESE faculty, students, and staff are heavy users of the Resnick High Performance Computing Center. This facility maintains cutting edge computing hardware for use across the Caltech campus. Additionally, Caltech collaborates with the Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey, California) Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies. This center operates research aircraft for atmosphere science studies, including a Twin Otter aircraft that carries state-of-the-art instruments to measure atmospheric aerosol and cloud properties in situ.
Resnick Water and Environment Laboratory (WEL)
The Resnick Water and Environment Laboratory (WEL), formally Environmental Analysis Center, is the state-of-the-art facility that supports a diverse research portfolio at Caltech. WEL is located in the Ronald and Maxine Linde Laboratory for Global Environmental Science. Dr. Nathan Dalleska is WEL's Director. To learn more about the laboratory, instrumentation, and user rates, please visit the Resnick Sustainability Institute WEL website.
Additionally, Caltech collaborates with the Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey, California) Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies. This center operates research aircraft for atmosphere science studies, including a Twin Otter aircraft that carries state-of-the-art instruments to measure atmospheric aerosol and cloud properties in situ.