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Characterisation of Apatites as Potential Uranium Reference Materials for Fission‐track Dating by LA ‐ ICP ‐ MS
Author(s) -
Soares Cleber J.,
MertzKraus Regina,
Guedes Sandro,
Stockli Daniel F.,
Zack Thomas
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geostandards and geoanalytical research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.037
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1751-908X
pISSN - 1639-4488
DOI - 10.1111/j.1751-908x.2014.00301.x
Subject(s) - apatite , inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry , fission track dating , uranium , electron microprobe , homogeneity (statistics) , analytical chemistry (journal) , mineralogy , mass spectrometry , radiochemistry , isotope dilution , trace element , microanalysis , chemistry , geology , materials science , chromatography , geochemistry , metallurgy , statistics , mathematics , organic chemistry
We report homogeneity tests on large natural apatite crystals to evaluate their potential as U reference materials for apatite fission‐track ( AFT ) thermochronology by laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry ( LA ‐ ICP ‐ MS ). The homogeneity tests include the measurements of major element concentrations by electron probe microanalysis ( EPMA ), whereas for U concentration, isotope dilution ( ID ) ICP ‐ MS and laser ablation ( LA ) ICP ‐ MS were employed. Two apatite crystals are potential reference materials for LA ‐ ICP ‐ MS analysis: a 1 cm 3 fraction of a Durango crystal (7.5 μg g −1 U) and a 1 cm 3 Mud Tank crystal (6.9 μg g −1 U). The relative standard deviation (1 RSD ) of the U concentration determined by ID ‐ ICP ‐ MS of both apatite crystals was ≤ 1.5%, whereas 1 RSD for the LA ‐ ICP ‐ MS results was better than 4%, providing sufficient homogeneity for fission‐track dating. The results on the U homogeneity for two different apatite samples are an important step towards establishing in situ dating routines for AFT analysis by LA ‐ ICP ‐ MS .