I grew up always wearing out the pockets of my pants because they were always full of rocks I had collected. Ultimately that interest in rocks and minerals lead me to a Ph.D. in Geology working on strange alkaline volcanic rocks in Central Montana. Some of those rocks contained gem quality sapphire and after a short 3-year stint in Finland working on gold deposits, my next step coming back to Finland in 1997 was to work on the diamond-bearing rocks called kimberlites that occur in eastern Finland. An underlying thread in my research is that I have always been fascinated by analytical instrumentation and have run practically every type of instrument used in mineralogy and geochemistry. Now as a member of the isotope laboratory at GTK in Espoo, my main work is with laser ablation ICP-MS determining trace element and isotope compositions, mostly in minerals, but also other types of materials. Although I prefer to stick to the geology side of things, our equipment has been used on projects ranging from Au deposits, PGE mineralization, experimental charges related to recycling and reclaiming metals to environmental monitoring analyzing feathers and reindeer hair. Because of these capabilities, the lab is also an integral part of the MinExTarget project, producing in-situ trace element and isotope data on a variety of sulfides, oxides and other minerals, to assist in determining vectors to ore. Finally, we also spend a large effort on dating rocks, from Finland and abroad, employing laser ablation techniques on minerals such as zircon, monazite and titanite using the U-Pb radiogenic clock. The oldest zircon grain from Finland that we have analyzed so far is 4.0 billion years old, but who knows what the next sample will bring?

Hugh O’Brien is a Senior Scientist working at the Research Laboratory of GTK located in Espoo.