Techniques for Measuring Uranium-series Nuclides: 1992-2002

Goldstein, Steven J.; Stirling, Claudine H.

doi:10.2113/0520023

Cited by 96 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 98 publications

(191 reference statements)

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“…Much of this new work has relied on the development of new analytical techniques. These advances began in the late 1980's with the development of thermal ionization mass spectrometric techniques for the measurement of U, Th, Pa and Ra including the ability to measure isotope ratios greater than 10 5 (see Goldstein and Stirling 2003). More recently, multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) has further improved the sensitivity, speed, and possibly precision of U-series measurements.…”

Section: New Developments In U-series Geochemistrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to U-series Geochemistry

Bourdon

2003

Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry

222

117

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Section: New Developments In U-series Geochemistrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to U-series Geochemistry

Bourdon

2003

Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry

222

117

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“…There has been a somewhat greater rate of increase of the use of terms characterizing mature sub-disciplines in the geosciences and environmental sciences such as 'geomorphology' (1.97) and 'tree ring' (2.42), whereas there has been a more radical growth in the use of the terms 'palaeoclimate'/'paleoclimate' (3.82) and 'speleothem'/ 'speleothems' (3.64). A key reason for the recent rapidly increasing impact of speleothem studies is the application of thermal ionization mass spectrometric methods of U-series dating (Edwards et al, 1987), which offered much smaller sample size, and hence better time-resolution, than the original alpha spectrometric counting methods (Goldstein and Stirling, 2003;Richards and Dorale, 2003). This enabled the inherent advantages of speleothems as palaeoenvironmental proxies to be opened up: speleothems can usually be precisely dated, they contain a number of physical and chemical proxy variables, and can be studied on a wide variety of timescales from sub-annual to hundreds of thousands of years.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Modification and preservation of environmental signals in speleothems

Fairchild

Smith

Baker

et al. 2006

Earth-Science Reviews

739

506

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Speleothems are primarily studied in order to generate archives of climatic change and results have led to significant advances in identifying and dating major shifts in the climate system. However, the climatological meaning of many speleothem records cannot be interpreted unequivocally; this is particularly so for more subtle shifts and shorter time periods, but the use of multiple proxies and improving understanding of formation mechanisms offers a clear way forward.An explicit description of speleothem records as time series draws attention to the nature and importance of the signal filtering processes by which the weather, the seasons and longer-term climatic and other environmental fluctuations become encoded in speleothems. We distinguish five sources of variation that influence speleothem geochemistry: atmospheric, vegetation/soil, karstic aquifer, primary speleothem crystal growth and secondary alteration and give specific examples of their influence. The direct role of climate diminishes progressively through these five factors.We identify and review a number of processes identified in recent and current work that bear significantly on the conventional interpretation of speleothem records, for example: 1) speleothem geochemistry can vary seasonally and hence a research need is to establish the proportion of growth attributable to different seasons and whether this varies over time.2) whereas there has traditionally been a focus on monthly mean δ 18 O data of atmospheric moisture, current work emphasizes the importance of understanding the synoptic processes that lead to characteristic isotope signals, since changing relative abundance of different weather types might 1 Corresponding author, fax +44(0)1214145528, E-mail: i.j.fairchild@bham.ac.uk control their variation on the longer-term. 3) the ecosystem and soil zone overlying the cave fundamentally imprint the carbon and trace element signals and can show characteristic variations with time. 4) new modelling on aquifer plumbing allows quantification of the effects of aquifer mixing. 5) recent work has emphasized the importance and seasonal variability of CO 2 -degassing leading to calcite precipitation upflow of a depositional site on carbon isotope and trace element composition of speleothems. 6) Although much is known about the chemical partitioning between water and stalagmites, variability in relation to crystal growth mechanisms and kinetics is a research frontier. 7) Aragonite is susceptible to conversion to calcite with major loss of chemical information, but the controls on the rate of this process are obscure.Analytical factors are critical to generate high-resolution speleothem records. A variety of methods of trace element analysis are available, but standardization is a common problem with the most rapid methods. New stable isotope data on Irish stalagmite CC3 compares rapid laser-ablation techniques with the conventional analysis of micromilled powders and ion microprobe methods. A high degree of comparability between techniques ...

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“…Several review articles on radiometric and massspectrometric techniques for measuring U & Th isotopes are available [245][246][247][248].…”

Section: Isotopes Of Thorium and Uraniummentioning

confidence: 99%