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Intercalibration of 40AR/39AR geochronology and in situ terrestrial cosmogenic 3HE
Schneider, B.S.H.
2012
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Schneider, B. S. H. (2012). Intercalibration of 40AR/39AR geochronology and in situ terrestrial cosmogenic 3HE:
Two scientific methods join at Earth's surface. http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/handle/1871/33215
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Download date: 10. Feb. 2021
https://research.vu.nl/en/publications/3b8630fe-bb19-4367-b21e-cd4893406bcf
http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/handle/1871/33215
VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT
INTERCALIBRATION OF 40AR/39AR GEOCHRONOLOGY
AND IN SITU TERRESTRIAL COSMOGENIC 3HE
Two scientific methods join at Earth's surface
ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT
ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan
de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
op gezag van de rector magnificus
prof.dr. L.M. Bouter,
in het openbaar te verdedigen
ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie
van de faculteit der Aard- en Levenswetenschappen
op woensdag 11 april 2012 om 11.45 uur
in het auditorium van de universiteit,
De Boelelaan 1105
door
Björn Sven Harald Schneider
geboren te Huerth, Duitsland
promotor: prof.dr. P.A.M. Andriessen
copromotor: prof.dr. J.R. Wijbrans
Für Daniel…Du bist nicht vergessen…
The Reading Committee
Dr. L.A. Morgan
Dr. F.M. Stuart
Dr. T.J. Dunai
Dr. J.M. O’Connor
Dr. A. Hildenbrand
This research was carried out at the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Department of Isotope Geochemistry, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences
De Boelelaan 1085
1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
and the
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre
NERC Cosmogenic Isotope Analysis Facility
Rankine Avenue
Scottish Enterprise Technology Park
East Kilbride G75 0QF, Scotland
The project was kindly supported by the
Marie Curie Initial Training Network CRONUS-EU
Project number 511927
and
The Netherlands Research Centre for Integrated Solid Earth Science (ISES).
Table of content
Introduction and summary 2
(Introductie en samenvatting)
I. Geological Setting
Geology of the Canary Islands 16
Fuerteventura 20
Geochronological Framework 21
Geomorphology and Climate 22
II. Sampling, sample characteristics and sample preparation
Sampling strategy 27
Sampling sites and sample field characteristics 27
Sample petrography 30
Sample preparation 31
Geochemistry 31
Summary 35
III. 40Ar/39Ar dating with a commercial grade triple filter quadrupole
mass spectrometer
Introduction 38
40Ar/39Ar geochronology: theory and application 39
Mass spectrometer line setup and methodology 43
Procedure development 49
Conclusions 68
Theory and application of in situ Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclides
Introduction 70
Principle of Cosmogenic Nuclide applications 70
Applications and methodology for in situ noble gas TCNs 77
In situ cosmogenic 3He methodology and approach in this work 79
V. Volcanic and exposure geochronology from Fuerteventura
Introduction 82
Methodology 83
Results 88
Discussion 98
Conclusions 103
Synthesis and Conclusions
This study and the Marie Curie initial training network 106
Synthesis 106
Perspectives 110
References 111
Acknowledgements 121
Appendices 123
Chronos, the god of time (sculpture by Franz Ignaz Gunther, 1765 – 1770, Bayerisches
Nationalmuseum, Munich, Germany)
Introduction, rationale and outline of this study
2
Introduction, rationale and outline of this study
One of the great challenges in Earth Sciences is to date ever younger events and processes with
satisfactory precision and accuracy. This is an important step towards linking past and present
behaviour of processes and potentially predicting future trends. Geochronology needs therefore
refinement of existing methods and development of new ones, including intercalibration of
methods, and their validation and testing. Radiometric dating is based on the fact that by knowing
the production or decay of an isotope an age of a sample containing the isotope can be made. One
of the challenges is that it is not possible to use a single dating method as all depend on suitable
material and only achieve satisfactory precision within certain time intervals. For example, the
radiocarbon method depends on the decay of 14C in a specimen over time. It is effectively extinct
in 10 half-lives, one half- life being 5730 ka. Most other isotopic dating techniques are
accumulation methods, i.e. they rely on the in-growth of the radiogenic daughter isotope by in situ
decay of a radioactive isotope, or as will be shown, by continued exposure to a field of cosmic rays
at the interface between the lithosphere and the atmosphere. All isotopic dating techniques relying
on accumulation are also constrained by a detection limit of their daughter isotope at the younger
end of their range of applicability.
This study was initiated to improve our knowledge about the production rate of in situ terrestrial
cosmogenic nuclides (TCN) within the framework of the CRONUS-EU Research Training
Network. The primary aims of this network were to improve our understanding of TCN
systematics and to train the next generation of scientists in using the TCN technique. CRONUS-
EU and the parallel United States based network initiative CRONUS-Earth also aimed to unify the
various existing scaling methods and production rates. Prior to these initiatives the best
characterized calibration sites for the Holocene where clustered on Hawaii and for the Pleistocene
in the Western USA and on the Canary Islands (Dunai, 2001 and references therein). During the
CRONUS-EU initiative new sites emerged as potential calibration sites, e.g. Mt Etna and
Stromboli in Italy and the Canary and Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.
The research described in this thesis focused on calibration of the cosmogenic 3He exposure dating
method using 40Ar/39Ar dated lava flows from the Canary Islands. It re-evaluated the Canary
Islands as a low latitude and low altitude calibration site for cosmogenic nuclides by changing the
sampling area from Lanzarote to Fuerteventura. This site was part of a natural target network
spanning a wide range of latitudes from Mt Kilimanjaro at 3 degrees South to Iceland at 64
Introduction, rationale and outline of this study
3
degrees N. It provided also an opportunity for testing new approaches in measuring argon isotopes
for 40Ar/39Ar geochronology and extracting helium from olivine phenocrysts. With the successful
calibration of the cosmogenic 3He exposure dating improvements in production rate knowledge
would be possible and help to decrease the uncertainties involved in cosmogenic nuclide
applications.
Technical improvements for dating younger rock samples
Both the K/Ar and 40Ar/39Ar techniques are well established dating methods. This study uses the
40Ar/39Ar method as an independent dating tool to validate the results of cosmogenic nuclide
measurements.
Since its development from the K/Ar method, the 40Ar/39Ar technique (Merrihue & Turner, 1966)
has been used to date rocks spanning a wide age range extending from the earliest geological
records to palaeoanthropological timescales and even the history of Rome in the Classic Era
(Renne et al., 1997; Ludwig & Renne, 2000). As ongoing analytical improvements in mass
spectrometry reduce the uncertainties in isotope measurements the uncertainties in K/Ar standard
ages and irradiation and decay constants have become increasingly important in 40Ar/39Ar
geochronology (Kuiper et al., 2008; Renne et al., 2008; Min et al., 2000). These analytical
improvements were necessary because dating increasingly younger samples was hindered by their
low radiogenic 40Ar content. This problem is particularly accute with ages less than a few 100 ka.
An additional problem is that the 40Ar/39Ar plateau method assumes the trapped non-radiogenic
argon component has an atmospheric is
