The Absolute Isotopic Composition of Zn in Terrestrial Materials Determined Using Double Spike Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry

Although long suspected to be widespread in nature, until recently, little was known about the extent of the variation of the isotopic composition, or isotopic fractionation, of Zn in natural materials. During the last decade an increasing number of high precision Zn isotopic fractionation data have been reported using MC- ICP-MS (MARECHAL et al., 1999; PETIT et al., 2008; PICHAT et al., 2003), but none have been reported on an absolute scale which is essential for interlaboratory comparison of results. In this work we report sub- permil Zn fractionation in a range of natural materials relative to the internationally proposed absolute Zn isotopic reference material (δ zero) (PONZEVERA et al., 2006)using the Thermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry double spike technique. Repeated double spike analysis of the laboratory standard relative to itself demonstrated a long term reproducibility of +0.006 ± 0.039 permil amu-1. The measured isotopic composition of Zn in minerals and igneous rocks SRMs was found to be the same as the proposed absolute (δ zero) which makes it possible to consider the proposed absolute Zn isotopic standard as being representative of "bulk earth" Zn. A significant and consistent fractionation of ~+0.3 permil amu-1 was found in 5 sediments from a range of localities. The results obtained for metamorphic SRMs indicate that the fractionation of Zn in these rocks is the same as found in igneous rocks but are different from the Zn found in sedimentary rocks. A clay SRM sample TILL-3 appears to exhibit a consistently Zn fractionation of +0.12 ± 0.10 permil amu-1. The isotopic composition of Zn was also measured in two plant SRMs and one animal SRM sample. The fractionation of (-0.088 ± 0.070 permil amu-1) of Zn in the Rice (a C3 type plant material) sample suggested that Zn may be used to study Zn systematics in plants. The result obtained for MURST-ISS-A2 (Antarctic Krill) was +0.21 ± 0.11 permil amu-1 relative to the laboratory standard which is similar to the average Zn fractionation results of +0.281 ± 0.083 permil amu-1 obtained for marine sediments. The fractionation of Zn in seven ultra pure Zn standard materials was also measured relative to the laboratory standard and found to range from -5.11 ± 0.36 permil amu-1 for AE 10760 to +0.12 ± 0.16 permil amu-1 for Zn IRMM 10440 confirming that that significant care must be exercised in the selection of Zn isotope laboratory standards (TANIMIZU et al., 2002). A pilot study to determine the concentration and the isotopic composition of Zn in river and tap water, and a number of processed materials was also performed. The implications and applications of these results, such as on the atomic weight of Zn will be presented.