About CCMS

Colorado Center for Meteoritic Studies  

CCMS was created to meet the rapidly growing needs of the meteorite community for an easy to access, professional analysis and classification service for suspected meteorites.

CCMS provides an easy to use online sample submission process for researchers, institutions, meteorite professionals, and finders of suspected meteorites.

Facilities: CCMS is equipped with in-house stone cutting facilities, sample-prep lab, and Niton XLF X-ray Fluorescence analyzer (XRF).

CCMS utilizes a JEOL JXA-8230 microprobe equipped with the LaB6 electron gun, located at the University of Colorado Boulder's Electron Microprobe Laboratory.

*New Mexico Meteoritic Services changed its DBA to Colorado Center for Meteoritic Studies and subsequently converted to a 501(C3) legal structure.  CCMS is a legal DBA of the Colorado based nonprofit entity, Center for Meteoritic Studies Inc. 

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Dustin Dickens, CCMS

Dustin manages the analysis and classification services for the Colorado Center for Meteoritic Studies. This includes sample prep, microprobe analysis, classification, and writeup for submission to Nomenclature Committee. 

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OUR PARTNERS AT UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER

Aaron S. Bell - Director of the CU Boulder Electron Microprobe Laboratory

Dr. Aarin S. Bell, CU Boulder

Dr. Aaron Bell is an experimental petrologist with an interest in applying microanalytical techniques to the characterization of geological materials. Prior to arriving at CU, Aaron spent four years as Sr. Research Scientist in the Institute of Meteoritics – Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of New Mexico. His research focuses on investigating the redox systematics of multi-valent elements (i.e., V, Cr, Fe, and S) in silicate liquids and their partitioning behavior in silicate liquid-mineral systems. This work combines synchrotron micro XANES (x-ray near edge absorption structure) spectroscopy at the Advanced Photon Source, electron microprobe analysis at CU, experimental petrology, and thermodynamic modeling. Aaron is currently the lead PI on two active research projects funded by NSF and NASA.