| AVS 57th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Surface Science | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session SS-TuP |
| Session: | Surface Science Poster Session |
| Presenter: | R.G. White, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK |
| Authors: | P. Mack, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK T. Nunney, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK R.G. White, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK A. Wright, ThermoFisher Scientific, UK |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
XPS has been used to analyse the ash released from a number of volcanoes, including that from Mount St Helens, USA and Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland. The results indicate that the differences in the composition of the basalt from different regions reflect the geological structure of the region. Some of the compositional differences depend upon whether the geological plates are moving together, causing more crust material to be mixed with the lava or whether the plates are moving apart and so the lava is predominantly from sub-surface sources. Further complications arise from the fact that the ash from some eruptions (e.g. Eyjafjallajökull) also contains material from an overlaying glacier. It has been found that the material from Eyjafjallajökull is richer in calcium than that from Mt St Helens.
The use of XPS to fingerprint this type of material has been investigated. The effect of ion sputtering of the material has also been investigated as a means to generate more representative data.