Three 260 L Memmert incubators are effectively our “decay chambers” – they are used for experiments requiring decay of organic matter (or mineralisation or other processes) at surface temperatures and pressures. Temperature can be set (or cycled) between 20°C and 45°C. The large capacity of the incubators facilitates the use of many replicates, and three incubators allow separate experiments to run concurrently at different temperatures.

The microwelder is used to make and seal Au capsules from Au tubing. The sealed capsules are then placed in the high pressure rig for thermal maturation.

The rig is a cold-seal water-pressurized system that allows samples (housed in Au capsules) to be experimentally matured at elevated temperatures (up to 600°C) and pressures (up to 500 bar). Sample size is constrained by the diameter of the reactor inner chamber, which is ca. 8 mm wide. The reactor can accommodate many samples at the same time. Initial experimental pressures in the reactor are generated in a two-step process involving use of a pump to generate initial pressures of ca. 50 bar and using thermal expansion (i.e. elevated temperatures) to achieve the desired experimental pressure. Intelligent temperature sensors ensure that the system learns from each experiment and gets better at achieving set temperatures with successive experimental runs.

This 100 L vacuum oven is an understated but well-used piece of equipment in the lab that allows rock samples and fossil tissues to be impregnated with resin under vacuum. Temperature and pressure can be set (or cycled) between 20°C and 200°C, and between 10 mb to 1013 mb.

Our Lulzbot Mini v2.0 3D printer is a plug-and-play machine that allows rapid printing of items up to 4608cm³ with a layer resolution of 0.05mm-0.90mm.

Our shakers include a Balco Rotabarrel rotary tumbling barrel 6L, a WiseShake® SHO-21D digital reciprocal shaker, and a Sci-Quip Incu-Shake Mini incubating orbital shaker. These shakers have diverse applications where agitation is required, e.g. in mixing, melanin extraction, and transport experiments.

The Leica EZ4W microscope allows easy and rapid imaging with incident and transmitted light and can live-stream images to devices using its internal wifi signal.

This equipment allows easy preparation of wax-embedded blocks and control of sample orientation relative to the blockface.

Standard equipment for easy preparation of histological sections 10 -30 microns thick.

This equipment provides fully automated staining of histological thin sections using standard stains such as Ailcian blue.

Leica DM 2700 epi-illumination microscope is coupled to an Ocean Optics 2000+ spectrophotometer aligned with the microscope C-axis to provide easy measurement of spectral reflectance of macroscopic and microscopic materials.

A beam splitter allows the microscope to be operated with all light directed to the eyepieces or split between the eyepieces and C-mount.

The microscope is fitted with 5x, 10x, 20x, and 100x objective lenses.

An inbuilt diaphragm allows reduction of the size of the area from which reflected light is collected and analysed to approx. 15 µm wide.

The spectrophotometer can be easily swapped with a Leica digital camera for photography of analysed regions.

Spectra can be calibrated against white and mirror standards for hue and reflectance, respectively. Left- and right-circularly polarized filters allow materials to checked for circular polarization.

A versatile, modular, digital microscope with a large range of magnifications to 2500x with 1600 x 1200 pixel resolution, and the ability to generate scalable 3D images and real-time stitched images.

This microscope has a wide base and extra long working distance to accommodate thick samples. A ring light plus fully adjustable fibre optic lights provide a high level of control over lighting, including the production of extremely low angle light for surface features with low relief.