Introduction
The use of accumulated radiation damage tracks from spontaneous nuclear fission in natural minerals was first suggested more than 50 years ago as the basis for a geological dating technique by Price and Walker (1963). Since that time fission track analysis has evolved to serve a range of geological, and occasionally archaeological, dating applications, with particularly widespread utility in the field of thermochronology. In this approach, the unique characteristic of fission tracks to fade, or anneal, at elevated temperatures is used to obtain both time and temperature information. The development of powerful modelling techniques now allows for reconstruction of the thermal histories of rocks by analysis of fission tracks in their constituent minerals. Fission track analysis has therefore emerged as one of the most important methods for thermochronology, especially in the low-temperature (<150 °C) environment characteristic of approximately the upper 5 km of the Earth’s...
Abbreviations
- Fission Track:
-
A linear trail of radiation damage in an insulating solid resulting from the passage of fission fragments formed by spontaneous or induced fission of a heavy nucleus, especially of isotopes of uranium.
- Fission Track Dating:
-
A technique for geological or archaeological dating based on the accumulation of fission tracks from the spontaneous nuclear fission of 238U in natural minerals and glasses.
- Fission Track Density:
-
The number of fission tracks counted per unit area on a given surface.
- Fission Track Length:
-
The length of a fission track measured under a microscope after chemical enlargement.
- Fission Track Annealing:
-
The property of fission tracks that results in the gradual repair of the radiation damage in the host material upon exposure to elevated temperatures.
- Fission Track Analysis:
-
The measurement of different fission track parameters including track density and track length that are used to monitor the degree of fission track annealing for the purpose of reconstructing rock thermal histories.
- Fission Track Thermochronology:
-
The reconstruction of rock thermal histories based on the fission track annealing properties of one or more constituent minerals.
Bibliography
Barbarand, J., Carter, A., and Hurford, A. J., 2003. Compositional and structural control of fission-track annealing in apatite. Chemical Geology, 198, 107–137.
Carlson, W. D., Donelick, R. A., and Ketcham, R. A., 1999. Variability of apatite fission track annealing kinetics: I. Experimental results. American Mineralogist, 84, 1212–1223.
Donelick, R. A., and Miller, D. S., 1991. Enhanced TINT fission track densities in low spontaneous track density apatites using 252Cf-derived fission fragment tracks: a model and experimental observations. Nuclear Tracks and Radiation Measurements, 18, 301–307.
Donelick, R. A., O’Sullivan, P. B., and Ketcham, R. A., 2005. Apatite fission-track analysis. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 58, 49–94.
Fleischer, R. L., and Price, P. B., 1964. Techniques for geological dating of minerals by chemical etching of fission fragment tracks. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 28, 1705–1712.
Fleischer, R. L., Price, P. B., and Walker, R. M., 1965a. Tracks of charged particles in solids. Science, 149, 383–393.
Fleischer, R. L., Price, P. B., and Walker, R. M., 1965b. Effects of temperature, pressure, and ionization on the formation and stability of fission tracks in minerals and glasses. Journal of Geophysical Research, 70, 1497–1502.
Fleischer, R. L., Price, P. B., and Walker, R. M., 1975. Nuclear Tracks in Solids. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Galbraith, R. F., 2005. Statistics for Fission Track Analysis. Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall.
Gallagher, K., 1995. Evolving thermal histories from apatite fission-track data. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 136, 421–435.
Gallagher, K., 2012. Transdimensional inverse thermal history modeling for quantitative thermochronology. Journal of Geophysical Research, 117, B02408.
Gallagher, K., Brown, R. W., and Johnson, C., 1998. Fission track analysis and its applications to geological problems. Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 26, 519–572.
Gleadow, A. J. W., 1981. Fission track dating methods: what are the real alternatives? Nuclear Tracks, 5, 3–14.
Gleadow, A. J. W., and Duddy, I. R., 1981. A natural long-term track annealing experiment for apatite. Nuclear Tracks, 5, 169–174.
Gleadow, A. J. W., Duddy, I. R., Green, P. F., and Lovering, J. F., 1986. Confined fission track lengths in apatite – a diagnostic tool for thermal history analysis. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 94, 405–415.
Gleadow, A. J. W., Belton, D. X., Kohn, B. P., and Brown, R. W., 2002. Fission track dating of phosphate minerals and the thermochronology of apatite. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 48, 579–630.
Gleadow, A. J. W., Gleadow, S. J., Belton, D. X., Kohn, B. P., and Krochmal, M. S., 2009. Coincidence mapping a key strategy for automated counting in fission track dating. In Ventura, B., Lisker, F., and Glasmacher, U. A. (eds.), Thermochronological Methods: From Palaeotemperature Constraints to Landscape Evolution Models. Geological Society of London Special Publication, Vol. 324, pp. 25–36.
Green, P. F., Duddy, I. R., Gleadow, A. J. W., Tingate, P. R., and Laslett, G. M., 1985. Fission track annealing in apatite: track length measurements and the form of the Arrhenius plot. Nuclear Tracks, 10, 323–328.
Green, P. F., Duddy, I. R., Gleadow, A. J. W., Tingate, P. R., and Laslett, G. M., 1986. Thermal annealing of fission tracks in apatite 1. A qualitative description. Chemical Geology, 59, 237–253.
Green, P. F., Duddy, I. R., and Hegarty, K. A., 2005. Comment on “Compositional and structural control of fission track annealing in apatite”. Chemical Geology, 214, 351–358.
Hasebe, N., Barberand, J., Jarvis, K., Carter, A., and Hurford, A. J., 2004. Apatite fission-track chronometry using laser ablation ICP-MS. Chemical Geology, 207, 135–145.
Hurford, A. J., and Green, P. F., 1982. A user’s guide to fission track dating calibration. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 59, 343–354.
Hurford, A. J., and Green, P. F., 1983. The zeta age calibration of fission track dating. Chemical Geology, 1, 285–317.
Ketcham, R. A., 2005. Forward and inverse modeling of low-temperature thermochronometry data. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 58, 275–314.
Lal, D., Rajan, R. S., and Tamhane, A. S., 1969. Chemical composition of nuclei of Z > 22 in cosmic rays using meteoritic minerals as detectors. Nature, 221, 33–37.
Laslett, G. M., Kendall, W. S., Gleadow, A. J. W., and Duddy, I. R., 1982. Bias in measurement of fission track length distributions. Nuclear Tracks, 6, 79–85.
Laslett, G. M., Green, P. F., Duddy, I. R., and Gleadow, A. J. W., 1987. Thermal annealing of fission tracks in apatite: 2 – a quantitative analysis. Chemical Geology, 65, 1–13.
Li, W., Lang, M., Gleadow, A. J. W., Zdorovets, M. V., and Ewing, R. C., 2012. Thermal annealing of unetched fission tracks in apatite. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 321–322, 121–127.
Naeser, C. W., 1967. The use of apatite and sphene for fission track age determinations. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 78, 1523–1526.
Price, P. B., and Walker, R. M., 1962. Observations of charged particle tracks in solids. Journal of Applied Physics, 33, 3400–3406.
Price, P. B., and Walker, R. M., 1963. Fossil tracks of charged particles in mica and the age of minerals. Journal of Geophysical Research, 68, 4847–4862.
Reiners, P. W., and Ehlers, T. A. (eds.), 2005. Low-temperature thermochronology. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 58.
Schmidt, J. S., LeLarge, M. L. M. V., Conceircao, R. V., and Balzaretti, N. M., 2014. Experimental evidence regarding the pressure dependence of fission track annealing in apatite. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 390, 1–7.
Silk, E. C. H., and Barnes, R. S., 1959. Examination of fission fragment tracks with a transmission electron microscope. Philosophical Magazine, 4, 970–972.
Storzer, D., and Wagner, G. A., 1969. Correction of thermally lowered fission track ages of tektites. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 5, 463–468.
Tagami, T., and O’Sullivan, P. B., 2005. Fundamentals of fission track thermochronology. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, 58, 19–47.
Tagami, T., Galbraith, R. F., Yamada, R., and Laslett, G. M., 1998. Revised annealing kinetics of fission tracks in zircon and geological applications. In Van den Haute, P., and De Corte, F. (eds.), Advances in Fission-Track Thermochronology. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, pp. 99–112.
Wagner, G. A., 1968. Fission track dating of apatites. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 4, 411–415.
Wagner, G., and Van den haute, P., 1992. Fission Track Dating. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Gleadow, A.J., Seiler, C. (2014). Fission Track Dating and Thermochronology. In: Rink, W., Thompson, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_5-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_5-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6326-5
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Earth and Environm. ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences