Description
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) requires non-personal services for radiocarbon subsampling and geotechnical measurements to be conducted on sediment cores collected by USGS researchers. The services include subsampling sediment cores, sieving samples, selecting material for radiocarbon dating, identifying and logging dominant species or plant types, preparing samples for submission to AMS facilities for radiocarbon analyses, and making measurements of sediment strength properties. The contractor will be required to analyze up to 400 subsamples for radiocarbon dating over the period of performance and provide shear strength measurements of up to 10 marine sediment cores and 10 lacustrine sediment cores. The contractor will also assist with core curation tasks, including sectioning and splitting of unsplit sediment core samples and preparing core sections for storage and archival.
• The contractor must have documented experience working with marine and lacustrine sediment cores, particularly experience with sieving samples and using a microscope to pick calcareous microfossils and organic material for radiocarbon dating.
• The contractor must have knowledge of common foraminiferal species and detrital plant assemblages commonly found in coastal and marine regions of California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska.
• The contractor must comply with guidelines outlined by the USGS Quality Management System (QMS) Instructional Memorandum and supporting manual.
• The contractor must complete standardized QA/QC forms for QMS provided by the USGS technical liaison.