Australian Scientific Instruments (ASI), a commercial enterprise of The Australian National University (ANU), has sold its “SHRIMP IIe” instrument to the University of Granada in Spain for $6 million.
The “SHRIMP IIe” is an ion microprobe that measures the ages of rocks. The acronym “SHRIMP” stands for Sensitive, High Resolution Ion Microprobe. Ironically, the “SHRIMP IIe” weighs 12 tonnes.
The University of Granada will now become the central point for European researchers as they use the “SHRIMP IIe” to look back billions of years to examine the earliest crustal materials on the Earth’s surface.
“The University of Granada’s decision to buy our “SHRIMP IIe” instrument is a big win for not only ASI but ANU and for Canberra” said ASI CEO Ed Roberts.
“It’s further proof that we can compete with the best in the world and that our technology is the best in the world. The “SHRIMP” was chosen over competing instruments from Europe, with a critical factor in their choice being the much higher effectiveness of our instrument. Almost ten times as many scientific papers have been written based on “SHRIMP” data.”
The “SHRIMP IIe” instrument was developed at the Research School of Earth Sciences at ANU. It calculates the age of rocks by measuring microscopic samples. Recently the instrument has been enhanced for use in the environmental and nuclear sciences, with a particular application to the study of climate change. “SHRIMP IIe” is the latest in the “SHRIMP” series of instruments.
The order from the University of Granada follows the successful sale and installation of “SHRIMP” s to major Universities, Government and private research institutes in Korea, Australia, Canada, USA, Japan, China and Russia. ASI is the holder of several engineering and export awards including the Institution of Engineers, Australia award for engineering excellence and the ACT Chief Minister’s export award for 2006, 2007 and 2008.
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