Interpreting and reporting fission-track chronological data

Abstract

Fission-track dating is based on the analysis of tracks—linear damage trails—produced by the spontaneous fission of 238U in a range of natural accessory minerals and glasses. The retention of tracks is sensitive to elevated temperatures, and the data serve principally as a tool for recording thermal histories of rocks, potentially over the range of ∼20–350 °C, depending on the specific minerals studied. As such, in most cases, fission-track data generally bear little or no direct relationship to the original formation age of the material studied. The age range of fission-track dating is related to the product of age and uranium content, and ages from several tens of years to older than 1 Ga ..