The Cartography Laboratory also houses an Illinois Department of Natural Resources computer workstation and color printer for continuing use on the Embarras River Watershed Project. This equipment is used by faculty and students preparing professional poster presentations and archiving data. The room contains 10 modern student petrographic microscopes, a reflected light microscope, complete thin-section equipment, binocular microscopes, and a video microscope for digital capture of images. Elsewhere in the department individual faculty have research microscopes. Ray Pheifer and Craig Chesner, has all the equipment and chemicals required to do complete heavy mineral separates for research.
Equipment includes all the necessary glassware as well as a rock splitter, crusher, and pulverizer.
A Frantz Isodynamic Separator will be acquired shortly and will be used in teaching, research, and sample preparation. The Grain Size Analysis Laboratory, under the supervision of Drs. Vince Gutowski, Kathy Bower, and Bob Jorstad, houses automated sieve shakers, wet and dry sieves, electronic balances, agitators, drying ovens, fume hoods, centrifuge, soil augering equipment, and hydrometers. The laboratory is used in both research and teaching and can run samples according to US Army Corps of Engineers, USDA, or engineering specifications. Field Camp Equipment Field Camp, under the direction of Dr. Craig Chesner, makes use standard field equipment that is checked out to students and faculty for research and teaching purposes.