The future of fission track thermochronology

Abstract

The methods of fission-track (FT) thermochronology, based on a combination of the external detector method, zeta calibration against independent age standards and measurements of horizontal confined track lengths, have undergone relatively little change over the last 25 years. This conventional approach has been highly successful and the foundation for important thermal history inversion methods, supporting an expanding range of geological applications. Several important new technologies have emerged in recent years, however, that are likely to have a disruptive effect on this relatively stable approach, including LA-ICP-MS analysis for 238U concentrations, new motorised digital microscopes ..