Potential matrix-matched reference material for in-situ garnet U-Pb dating

Well-characterized matrix-matched reference materials are an indispensable requisite for mineral dating by LA-ICPMS. Recently, the in-situ U-Pb dating of low-U minerals (<20 µg/g) has emerged as a cutting-edge technique in the field of geochronology. The methodology has especially been applied to carbonate and garnet, although other minerals such as sulfate, ilmenite, staurolite, etc., are likely dateable by the same technique. However, the ability to expand this technique to such phases is hampered by the scarcity of reliable reference materials, creating a strong need for investigating and developing appropriate materials with well-constraint ages and homogeneous isotopic compositions.

During the last few years, the FIERCE laboratory has been investigating reference materials for garnet dating. Analysing garnet crystals from different localities and of various U and Pb contents, we found that four garnet localities have the potential to become reference materials for in-situ U-Pb studies. On the one hand, the availability of garnet crystals is sufficient to be distributed to laboratories worldwide. On the other hand, the garnet crystals analysed at FIERCE are relatively homogeneous, except for specific domains like rims, which showed slightly different ages (Millonig et al., 2023). The studied specimens come from Balochistan, with an approximate age of 45 Ma; Mongolia (ca. 130 Ma); Mali (black variety, different to the popular “Red-Mali”, age of ca. 200 Ma) and the Lake Jaco district in Mexico (pink variety, ca. 35 Ma). For this contribution, we have done an intra-crystal, inter-crystal and inter-session comparative study of the different localities, analysing multiple crystals from each locality over multiple analytical sessions. The potential reference materials analyses have been cross-calibrated against garnet crystals of known age (ID-TIMS age) and yield reproducible ages between different analytical sessions. Furthermore, garnet from the four localities will also be analysed by TIMS to provide independent age constraints.