A guide to synchrotron hard X-ray fluorescence mapping of annually laminated stalagmites: Sample preparation, analysis and evaluation

Abstract

Annually laminated stalagmites are an exceptional archive of high-resolution past hydroclimate changes and provide robust annually-resolved age models. Stalagmite chemical annual laminae are invisible through optical and fluorescence microscopy, but are revealed by X-ray fluorescence or mass-spectrometry techniques. Synchrotron radiation based micro-X-ray fluorescence (S-μXRF) has the unique advantage of creating 2-dimensional maps of element distribution, which allows visualizing lateral heterogeneity and porosity that pose problems when one dimensional line-scanning techniques, such as LA-ICP-MS, are used. Here, we show how S-μXRF fast element mapping allows obtaining robust age models and..