Journal article
An investigation of the laser-induced zircon 'matrix effect'
E Marillo-Sialer, J Woodhead, JM Hanchar, SM Reddy, A Greig, J Hergt, B Kohn
Chemical Geology | ELSEVIER | Published : 2016
Abstract
This study aims to improve our understanding of the current limitations to high-precision U-Pb analysis of zircon by LA-ICP-MS by investigating the underlying causes of variation in ablation behaviour between different zircon matrices. Multiple factors such as: the degree of accumulated radiation damage, trace element composition; crystal colour; and crystallographic orientation are all systematically investigated. Due to the marked decrease in elastic moduli of natural zircon crystals with increasing radiation damage, the accumulation of this damage is the dominant factor controlling the rate of ablation for partially damaged to highly metamict zircon samples. There are slight differences, ..
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Funding Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge B. Johnson and S. Rubanov for technical assistance with Raman spectrometry and HR-TEM analyses, respectively. X-H. Li is thanked for providing the Qinghu zircon. M. Horstwood and an anonymous reviewer are thanked for providing comments that helped improve the quality of this manuscript. This work was supported by an Albert Shimmins Postgraduate Award 5-152-1 from the University of Melbourne to EMS, and NSERC Discovery grant to JMH.