Abstract
Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) zircon U-Pb dating has been widely used to confine the absolute ages of the magmatic or metamorphic events and to distinguish multiple events. Here, a data set consisting of the zircon standards dating data (∼15 000 Plešovice and ∼8 000 Qinghu items) accumulated for more than 8 years using the CAMECA IMS 1280HR of the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) is compiled to evaluate the long-term external reproducibility. With Plešovice zircon as the calibration standard and Qinghu zircon as an unknown sample, the analytical uncertainties for single-spot (n = 7 723) and session analyses (n = 691, with more than 7 single spot analyses in one session) are 2.6% and 0.9% (2RSD, relative standard deviation), respectively. It means that single-spot U-Pb dating for a standard-level zircon sample could vary 5.2% at 95% confidence level, while the average value (n > 7) for each session may vary 1.8%. Thus, these values should be considered as the minimum uncertainty when comparing single spot and individual session analysis results for multiple dating works on a certain geological event.
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2018YFA0702600), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41773044, 41773047). The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-021-1549-1.
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Zhao, W., Li, Q., Liu, Y. et al. Long-Term Reproducibility of SIMS Zircon U-Pb Geochronology. J. Earth Sci. 33, 17–24 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-021-1549-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-021-1549-1