Journal article
LGC-1: A zircon reference material for in-situ (U-Th)/He dating
Y Tian, P Vermeesch, M Danišík, DJ Condon, W Chen, B Kohn, J Schwanethal, M Rittner
Chemical Geology | ELSEVIER | Published : 2017
Abstract
A pairwise in-situ (U-Th)/He dating method has been proposed for mitigating matrix-related bias in U and Th measurements using synthetic reference materials. This method requires a natural zircon reference material whose (U-Th)/He age should be homogeneous on the scale (~ 10–100 μm) to be used in such dating experiments. A newly characterized zircon LGC-1 megacryst fulfils this requirement. This pale-yellowish, flawless Sri Lanka gem specimen is about 1.2 ∗ 0.8 ∗ 0.8 cm in size. Optical microscopy, cathodoluminescence-imaging, X-ray elemental mapping, and Raman spectroscopy on a large number of random shards did not reveal any detectable textural and compositional heterogeneity. Laser ablati..
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Awarded by Natural Environment Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This research was funded by NERC Standard Grant NE/K003232/1 and ERC grant #259505. The University of Melbourne thermo-chronology laboratory receives infrastructure support under the AuScope Program of NCRIS. The authors are grateful to A. Carter of Birk-beck for discussions and lab assistance, J. Sun of IGCAGS for assistance in (U-Th)/He analyses, A. Beard of Birkbeck for assistance in microprobe analyses, S. Firth of UCL for assistance in Raman spectroscopy, N. Evans, B. McDonald and T. Becker of Curtin for assistance in in-situ (U-Th)/He and AFM analyses, respectively. Incisive and constructive reviews by G. Li and an anonymous reviewer, and editorial work by C. Chauvel are gratefully acknowledged.