signature=461282e191fe3d72a8b43e5b831644fb,U-series dating of carbonates using inductively coupled p...

摘要：

We describe an analytical methodology to quantify U–U and Th using isotope-dilution systematics and inductively coupled plasma-quadrupole mass spectrometry (ICP-QMS) for geochronological purposes. This required characterization of the mass spectrometer detector performance over a large dynamic range, including a careful calibration between pulse and analogue ion-counting modes. Our methodology gives an analytical precision for U/U and Th/U of 4‰ and 7‰ (2 × standard error), respectively, and yields Th-ages with 4–5% uncertainty from 500 ng of U. We tested our methodology by analyzing carbonate samples (corals and speleothems) which were previously dated using MC-ICPMS; excellent agreement between both techniques was obtained. Our results indicate that ICP-QMS is suitable to obtain valuable meaningful geochronological data, but it is limited to dating samples older than 1 ka, and younger than 400 ka. Our methodology thus represents an attractive alternative to obtain geochonological data to select the most interesting samples prior to high-precision analysis. Moreover, such data would also valuable to build preliminary age-models, which can be further complemented with high-precision analyses.Highlights? We successfully quantify U–U–Th in carbonates by isotope dilution ICP-QMS. ? Precision (2SE) is 3–4‰ for U/U, and 6–7‰ for Th/U using 500 ng U. ? Accuracy is comparable with MC-ICPMS resulting in Th age uncertainties

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