The Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques CNRS

The CRPG is located in Nancy in eastern France, a region that in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries was providing France with almost all its coal and iron resources. This industrial activity led to the opening of the French engineering school of geology (Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie-ENSG), to train the required leaders in industry. An outgrowth of the ENSG, the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques (CRPG), was created in 1953 as a laboratory of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) with a mandate to develop research in geochemistry and petrology, and to provide analytical and research expertise for French geologists in ore exploration around the world. The CRPG is now the central research focus of a strong environment of teaching and research in geology that includes five different research laboratories associated with the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine (INPL) and also the Université Henri Poincaré of Nancy, involving more than 250 CNRS researchers, university scientists, engineers and technicians. Early pioneering work in spectrochemistry by Kuppusami Govindaraju set the scene for a research specialisation in analytical geochemistry. In the 70's and 80's Francis Albarède and Simon Sheppard assured the place of the CRPG as a leader in mass spectrometry. This expertis