Abstract
U-Pb dating by LA ICP-MS is one of the most popular and successful isotopic techniques available to the Earth Sciences to constrain timing and rates of geological processes thanks to its high spatial resolution, good precision (absolute U/Pb age resolution of ca. 2%, 2s), rapidity and relative affordability. The significant and continuous improvement of instrumentation and approaches has opened new fields of applications by extending the range of minerals that can be dated by this method. Following the development and distribution to the community of good quality reference materials in the last decade, rutile U-Pb thermochronology (with a precision only slightly worse than zircon) has become a commonly used method to track cooling of deep-seated rocks. Its sensitivity to mid- to low-crustal temperatures (~450 °C to 650 °C) is ideal to constrain exhumation in active and ancient orogens as well as thermal evolution of slow-cooled terranes. Recrystallization and secondary growth during metamorphism and the presence of grain boundary fluids can also affect the U-Pb isotopic system in rutile. A growing body of research focusing on U-Pb dating of rutile by LA ICP-MS is greatly improving our understanding of the behavior of this mineral with regards to retention of radiogenic Pb. This is key to fully exploit its potential as a tracker of geological processes. The latest developments in this field are reviewed in this contribution. The combined application of U-Pb zircon and rutile chronology in provenance studies, particularly when complemented by lower-T thermochronometry data, allows the isotopic characterization of the sources across a wide range of temperatures. The benefits of applying detrital zircon-rutile U-Pb chronology as a coupled provenance proxy are presented here, with a focus on the Eastern Himalayan-Indo-Burman region, where a growing number of successful studies employs such an approach to help constrain river drainage and basin evolution and to infer feedback relationships between erosion, tectonics and climate.
Highlights
The last couple of decades has witnessed an exponential growth of the number of publications presenting U-(Th)-Pb data [1]
Directions first appearance of lag times quality of
Najman et al [111] interpreted the. The application of this technique benefits from a better understanding, developed in the last earliest record of short lag times to represent the onset of extremely rapid exhumation of the Eastern decade, of the natural processes affecting the U-Pb systematics of rutile, primarily thermally-activated
Summary
The last couple of decades has witnessed an exponential growth of the number of publications presenting U-(Th)-Pb data [1]. Both zircon and rutile are resistant to chemical and physical breakdown, they tend to be preserved as detrital grains (Figure 1a,b) during the various stages of the sedimentary cycle (including burial diagenesis, see Figure 13 of [39]) which makes them ideal provenance proxies For their high density (respectively, 4.6–4.7 and 4.23–5.5 g/cm3 [40]) and diamagnetic nature ( rutile can contain Fe in relatively high proportion) zircon and rutile from the same rock can be recovered together in the “non-magnetic” heavy mineral fraction following the application of standard mineral separation techniques.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
