Space West Spotlight - Bristol Isotope Group
Welcome to Space West Spotlight, a series celebrating the people, research and businesses that make up the Space West community.
Through this series, we'll profile the individuals driving innovation, the pioneering research shaping the future and the local businesses powering growth across our region.
This edition, shines the spotlight on the Bristol Isotope Group, which belongs to the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences. We would like to thank Professor Tim Elliott for sharing this research with us.
What is the focus of your research?
As our name suggests we measure the isotope ratios of various elements to date, provenance and trace processes experienced by extra-terrestrial materials sampled by meteorites.
What challenge or opportunity does it address?
Our overall challenge is to explain the wide range of isotopic signature present in extra-terrestrial samples, that inform on the processes of planetary formation and stellar origins of solar system material. An exciting recent opportunity has been access to novel samples from return missions to asteroids.
What makes this work novel or significant?
We have developed novel analytical techniques and instrumentation to tackle some of our scientific challenges. For example we have increasingly embraced in situ micro-analysis, given improvements in technology which allow us to hunt for pre-solar material in meteorites.
How does it benefit industry or society?
We have collaborated with instrument manufacturers in order to develop new analytical capabilities. Some of our techniques have wide application beyond cosmochemistry, including use in medical research, nuclear waste monitoring and resource exploration.
What are the next steps for your research?
We are always seeking to improve the precision of our methods, increase the number of elements we can measure in tandem to constrain problems and improve the resolution of our sampling capabilities, not least for precious sample return material.
What opportunities are there for collaboration or knowledge transfer?
We are always open to discussion about potential applications of our methods to new topics. As mentioned, there are diverse applications to this research and if you are interested in exploring potential avenues, email [email protected].