High-reliability zircon separation for hunting the oldest material on Earth: An automatic zircon separator with image-processing/microtweezers-manipulating system and double-step dating

Abstract

Despite the recent development in radiometric dating of numerous zircons by LA-ICPMS, mineral separation still remains a major obstacle, particularly in the search for the oldest material on Earth. To improve the efficiency in zircon separation by an order of magnitude, we have designed/developed a new machine – an automatic zircon separator (AZS). This is designed particularly for automatic pick-up of 100 μm-sized zircon grains out of a heavy mineral fraction after conventional separation procedures. The AZS operates in three modes: (1) image processing to choose targeted individual zircon grains out of all heavy minerals spread on a tray, (2) automatic capturing of the individual zircon grains with micro-tweezers, and (3) placing them one-by-one in a coordinated alignment on a receiving tray. The automatic capturing was designed/created for continuous mineral selecting without human presence for many hours. This software also enables the registration of each separated zircon grain for dating, by recording digital photo-image, optical (color) indices, and coordinates on a receiving tray. We developed two new approaches for the dating; i.e. (1) direct dating of zircons selected by LA-ICPMS without conventional resin-mounting/polishing, (2) high speed U-Pb dating, combined with conventional sample preparation procedures using the new equipment with multiple-ion counting detectors (LA-MIC-ICPMS). With the first approach, Pb-Pb ages obtained from the surface of a mineral were crosschecked with the interior of the same grain after resin-mounting/polishing. With the second approach, the amount of time required for dating one zircon grain is ca. 20 s, and a sample throughput of >150 grains per hour can be achieved with sufficient precision (ca. 0.5%).We tested the practical efficiency of the AZS, by analyzing an Archean Jack Hills conglomerate in Western Australia with the known oldest (>4.3 Ga) zircon on Earth. Preliminary results are positive; we were able to obtain more than 194 zircons that are over 4.0 Ga out of ca. 3800 checked grains, and 9 grains were over 4300 Ma with the oldest at 4371 ± 7 Ma. This separation system by AZS, combined with the new approaches, guarantees much higher yield in the hunt for old zircons.