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- PREPARE CORE SECTION
- Wipe excess moisture/mud off core liner
- Tape over any holes on core liner using tape
- Load a section for analysis.
- Seat the section in the titanium boat (Figure 2). The blue end cap ("top") should be near the NGRL door opening.
- The barcode label is visible, ready to be scanned; it does not matter whether the archive- or working-half label is scanned.
Figure 2: Core section sitting in the loading tray.
- Click START (Figure 3).
Figure 3: NGR Program Main Window. The 'Start' button is outlined in red. - A sample information dialog displays (Figure 4). Pressing Cancel closes this panel and returns to the main display.
Figure 4: Sample Information Window. Scan section label, information is parsed out into the Sample ID and LIMS ID fields. The 'User Length' field (red square) requires input in order to run a measurement. - Ensure the cursor is in the Text ID field and scan either of the core section's barcode labels, A-half or W-half work equally well. Check to be sure all sample information has populated the windows properly. If the experiment is run with incorrect sample information the section will need to be rescanned.
- Enter sample length observed into the 'User Length' field. Round the sample length to the nearest whole cm. Be careful to observe the actual length of the material in the core liner, not just the end cap and to be consistent in how length is determined from measurement to measurement. The "Measure" button will become available once the user has clicked out of the user length field.
- Click MEASURE.
This starts the automated measurement: the boat moves to the home position, and then moves to measurement position two and begins measurement. Approximately halfway into the measurement, the boat is pulled out 10 cm to measurement position one (this will not occur if the user has chosen only to measure one position on a high-recovery cruise). The bar on the left side of the screen tracks the progress of each measurement (Fig 5. Outlined in red)
Figure 5: Run Window. Spectra and Total Counts can be seen. There are also tabs for the individual detectors at the top of the screen that can be selected. - When the measurement is complete, the titanium boat will return to original load position.
- If the measurement needs to be aborted press the ABORT (Fig. 6) button seen on the main display.
Figure 6: ABORT. User can choose between three options as seen. - Update the instrument log sheet. It is very important to fill out the log sheet consistently in order for the technician to be able to assist the user in sorting out any problems after the fact.
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