Water and Trace Gases Lab (Crew Lab 13)

This facility is focussed on the preparation, maintenance and testing of field equipment for hydrological flow measurement, water sampling and trace gas sampling. It also stores field equipment and accessories whilst not deployed in the field. The lab performs processing and basic measurements of water, soil and trace gas samples on return from the field (e.g. filtering, acidification, absorbance, pH and conductivity measurements), and conducts experiments involving environmental materials (e.g. column experiments, extractions). Measurements of plant CO2 gas-exchange are carried out with a fully controlled closed cuvette system, which may involve the preparation of plant material and pumping air from outside the building through the GFS-3000 instrument. Measurements of photosynthetic activity are also carried out via chlorophyll fluorescence.