Abstract
Abstract. We established a new laboratory for noble gas mass spectrometry that is dedicated to the development and application to cosmogenic nuclides at the University of Cologne (Germany). At the core of the laboratory are a state-of-the-art high-mass-resolution multicollector Helix MC Plus (Thermo Fisher Scientific) noble gas mass spectrometer and a novel custom-designed automated extraction line. The mass spectrometer is equipped with five combined Faraday multiplier collectors, with 1012 and 1013 Ω pre-amplifiers for faraday collectors. We describe the extraction line and the automated procedure for cosmogenic neon and the current performance of the experimental set-up. Performance tests were conducted using gas of atmospheric isotopic composition (our primary standard gas), as well as CREU-1 intercomparison material, containing a mixture of neon of atmospheric and cosmogenic composition. We use the results from repeated analysis of CREU-1 to assess the performance of the current experimental set-up at Cologne. The precision in determining the abundance of cosmogenic 21Ne is equal to or better than those reported for other laboratories. The absolute value we obtain for the concentration of cosmogenic 21Ne in CREU is indistinguishable from the published value.
Highlights
Cosmogenic Ne isotopes are stable and compared to other cosmogenic radionuclides (e.g. 10Be, 26Al) exhibit the potential to date beyond the physical limit of radionuclides
The particular strength of cosmogenic neon is its application to date quartz clasts of very old surfaces (> 4 Ma) or very slowly eroding landscapes (< 10 cm Ma−1), which is unattainable with most other radionuclides (Dunai, 2010)
Ne can be measured on conventional sector field noble gas mass spectrometers, is less time consuming and requires less samplepreparation compared to AMS measurements required for the cosmogenic radionuclides
Summary
Cosmogenic Ne isotopes are stable and compared to other cosmogenic radionuclides (e.g. 10Be, 26Al) exhibit the potential to date beyond the physical limit of radionuclides. B. Ritter et al.: Noble gas extraction procedure and performance of the Cologne Helix MC Plus throughout the evaluation of the isotope data (mass discrimination etc.) and calculation of abundances, and (iii) the atmospheric value used is reported along with the data. The neon three-isotope diagram with 20Ne as common denominator (Niedermann et al, 1994; Niedermann, 2002) is customarily used to assess 21Ne data for the presence of terrestrial cosmogenic Ne and its discrimination from other non-atmospheric Ne components (Dunai, 2010).
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