Join us for this webinar:
“At the Scale of a Ring: Unlocking High-Resolution Climate Archives in Trees through LA-IRMS
Join us for an exciting webinar “At the Scale of a Ring: Unlocking High-Resolution Climate Archives in Trees through LA-IRMS” on Thursday 5th March.
Starting at 16:00hrs GMT (11:00hrs ET), the webinar features key speaker Soumaya Belmecheri, Associate Professor at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona.
Soumaya will be joined by Lucas Smith, Lucas Smith is the Director of Business Development for the Americas and Australia at Teledyne Photon Machines, where he supports the growth and adoption of advanced laser ablation technologies. Our own Garry Armstrong will also be available for the Q&A section of the event.
Here’s the abstract of the event:
Recent advances in high resolution analyses of the relative abundance of stable isotopes of Carbon and Oxygen from tree rings enabled by laser-ablation techniques are opening new research avenues to link weather and climate processes from the cellular to global and from sub-seasonal to multi centennial scales. These next generation datasets will allow addressing standing questions related to the global carbon cycle, atmospheric circulation in tropical regions and environmental history in arctic regions. The Tree-Ring Innovation in Mass Spectrometry for the Earth System Laboratory (TIME) within the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research (LTRR) at the University of Arizona now hosts such cutting-edge instrument, an Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer coupled with a Laser Ablation System (LA-IRMS). In this talk, I will highlight novel applications of LA IRMS measurements to reveal how trees respond to sudden climate stress. I focus on “blue rings”, distinct growth anomalies formed during abrupt climatic stress in the sub-arctic trees and shrubs. I will also show the potential of high-resolution isotope measurements to detect rapid swings between wet and dry conditions (hydroclimate whiplashes) in the southwestern United States recorded in tree rings.
The Laser Ablation IRMS technique has been developed through a long term collaboration between Sercon Instruments, Teledyne Photon Machines and Terra Analitic. Find our more about the development journey at www.la-irms.com.
We look forward to seeing you on the webinar. If you’d like to discuss the potential uses of LA-IRMS in your research, just email sales@sercongroup.com, we’d love to hear from you.
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Soumaya Belmecheri
Soumaya is an Associate Professor at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona, where she studies long-term environmental variability during the Common Era as recorded in terrestrial ecosystems. Her research explores how these changes shape atmosphere–biosphere interactions, with a particular focus on seasonal hydroclimate variability and extremes, including hydroclimate whiplashes and tropical cyclones.
Lucas Smith
Lucas Smith is the Director of Business Development for the Americas and Australia at Teledyne Photon Machines, where he supports the growth and adoption of advanced laser ablation technologies throughout the region. He brings more than twenty years of experience in analytical instrumentation, combining technical expertise with customer‑focused leadership. His background includes extensive work in chromatography, mass spectrometry, product management, and training, with earlier roles at LECO Corporation and in environmental and pharmaceutical laboratories.
Garry Armstrong
Garry Armstrong is a mass spectrometry professional with over 25 years of experience across engineering and commercial leadership in analytical instrumentation. He began working with mass spectrometry at Micromass in 2002, developing deep expertise in both organic and inorganic mass spec. Today, as a Director at Sercon Instruments and Applications, Garry helps advance high-precision isotope ratio mass spectrometry used by leading research and industrial laboratories worldwide, bridging technical insight with strategic growth to support the global scientific community.