Clean quartz matters for cosmogenic nuclide analyses: An exploration of the importance of sample purity using the CRONUS-N reference material
File(s)Corbett_et_al_2022_QG_CRONUS-N_ACCEPTED.pdf (1.88 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Reference materials are key for assessing inter-laboratory variability and measurement quality, and for placing analytical uncertainty bounds on sample analyses. Here, we investigate four years of data resulting from repeated processing of the CRONUS-N reference material for cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al analyses. At University of Vermont, we prepared a CRONUS-N aliquot with most of our sample batches from 2013 to 2017; these reference material samples were then distributed to four different accelerator mass spectrometry facilities, yielding 73 10Be analyses and 58 26Al analyses. We determine CRONUS-N 10Be concentrations of (2.26 ± 0.14) x 105 atoms g−1 (n = 73, mean, 1 SD) and 26Al concentrations of (1.00 ± 0.08) x 106 atoms g−1 (n = 58, mean, 1 SD). We find a reproducibility of 6.3% for 10Be and 7.7% for 26Al (relative standard deviations). We also document highly variable 27Al and Mg concentrations and a 10Be dispersion twice as large as the mean AMS analytic uncertainty. Analyses of the CRONUS-N material with and without density separation demonstrate that non-quartz minerals are present in the material and have a large impact on measured concentrations of 27Al, 10Be, and impurities; these non-quartz minerals represent only a very small portion of the total mass (0.6–0.8%) but have a disproportionally large effect on the resulting data. Our results highlight the importance of completely removing all non-quartz mineral phases from samples prior to Be/Al extraction for the determination of in situ cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al concentrations.
Date Issued
2022-11-01
Online Publication Date
2023-09-14T23:01:28Z
Date Acceptance
2022-09-04
ISSN
1871-1014
Publisher
Elsevier
Start Page
1
End Page
12
Journal / Book Title
Quaternary Geochronology
Volume
73
Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1871101422001510?via%3Dihub
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000862985000001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 101403
Date Publish Online
2022-09-15