In collaboration with colleagues at the Universities of Sydney, New South Wales, Melbourne and Queensland, a Major National Research Facility titled “Nanostructural Analysis Network Organisation” has been established. Two of the four new flagship facilities have geoscience research orientation; the dual beam focused ion beam (FIB) platform at the University of New South Wales within the Electron Microscopy Unit and the NanoSIMS 50 ion microprobe at the University of Western Australia within the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis (CMM).

The FIB is a high resolution knife. Using a gallium ion beam it allows advanced sectioning at the micron scale, controlled by simultaneous SEM imaging. It has the potential to support sampling for isotopic and trace element analysis at the micron scale. The NanoSIMS ion microprobe is a facility that challenges our imagination. It provides mass images (elemental or isotopic) with lateral resolutions down to 25 nm and 1-3 nm in the vertical plane. Elemental and isotopic abundance variation measurements are possible down to the parts per billion levels. Colleagues at Washington State University are exploring pre-global history and locally Richard Stern, with others, have achieved our/the first geochronology successes. In 2004, the first geoscience NanoSIMS Honours project (by Blaire Coleman) was successfully completed on trace element compositional variation of xenotime with time and fluid chemistry.

Multi-photon confocal microscopy (MPC) and spectroscopy have also, and at last, become locally available through ARC LIEF funding in 2004. The wide laser wavelength range can excite autofluorescence in many geomaterials. A new Zeiss FEGSEM has sub-nanometre resolution and strong surface imaging capabilities that provide new capacity in leaching and soil studies. This instrument can operate in variable pressure mode to allow examination of uncoated and relatively hydrated samples, even at low beam energies that allow good surface detail to be achieved, for example, from clays and micas.

Our current and future prospects include increased support for trace element analysis of minerals and CHIME dating, automated-searching for xenotime, monazite and zircon using adapted GSR software on the Zeiss and a new microprobe in the medium term.