Abstract: We have established a method to determine the geometry of the minor forms of acyclic 1, 3-dienes. A high vacuum cryogenic trapping technique was used to obtain spectral data of these metastable conformers from mixtures equilibrated at 1100 K. This has enabled us to characterize the minor form of 2, 3-dimethyl-1, 3-butadiene (DMB) by IR and UV spectroscopy. Barriers to rotation of the metastable forms of isoprene and DMB to their ...