The lab is equipped with a number of different spectroscopy applications for determining metal concentrations in a wide variety of samples including water, soil and organic content. Total and dissolved concentrations can be measured with Graphite Furnace Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (GFAAS), Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (FAAS) and Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry (ICP-AES). Our latest acquisition is a quadrupole Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS) with autosampler (Varian, Palo Alto, USA) which allows the direct detection of different isotopes from the same element (e.g. for Cu: Cu-63 and Cu-65). This technique of isotope discrimination is currently being implemented as an alternative to radio-active labeled tracer studies.