Permafrost Carbon and Nitrogen Lab (CarLa) focuses its efforts on the characterization of carbon and nitrogen vulnerability in thawing permafrost as well as carbon and nitrogen quantification and paleo-environmental reconstruction. The following parameters are recorded: bulk total carbon and nitrogen, total organic carbon and lipid biomarkers.

The preparation laboratory includes facilities for the extraction of the soluble organic matter from sediments, sedimentary rocks, coals, microbial cultures and water samples using flow-blending-extraction and ultrasonic-extraction tools. Further, medium pressure liquid chromatography is used to separate extracts into different fractions of polarity (aliphatic, aromatic and polar NSO fraction) as well as preparative HPLC and GC.