Higher Precision: Opening A New 40Ar/39Ar Can Of Worms

Advances in technology often lead to advances in science and this is true for the noble gas community that is currently being inundated with new multi-collector mass spectrometers. For the 40Ar/39Ar community, the ARGUS VI mass spectrometers are yielding age precision on individual age spectrum steps or single grain fusion ages that is commonly an order of magnitude improved over the MAP-215-50 instruments. Just as age spectrum analyses did in the 1960's, and single crystal laser fusion did in the 1980's, new data now yields another level of insight about isotopic behavior and an improved geological understanding, but also reveals difficult to understand complexity. Ongoing with geochronology studies, NM Tech is revisiting many of the commonly used 40Ar/39Ar flux monitor standards used throughout the argon community. Single grain analysis of AC-2, FC-2 sanidine, TCR-2 sanidine, GA1550 biotite, Fireclay sanidine and PP20 hornblende all yield scattered distributions except for AC-2. Typical single crystal 1 sigma precision for FC-2 and TCR sanidine is 0.02 and 0.06%, respectively with both samples heterogeneous at the 25 ka level. GA1550 biotite is measured to 0.02% and as governed by an MSWD value of 3.5 has a relatively tight age population. The ca. 313 Ma Fireclay sanidine grains yields ~0.1 Ma age precision, but scatters by more than 1 Ma. PP20 hornblende single grains (~1175 Ma) vary by ~25 Ma however most scatter by ±5 Ma. AC-2 is the youngest standard (~1.18 Ma) and we obtain single grain precision of 0.15% and commonly a normal distribution about a total age error of <1 ka 1 sigma. Incremental heating of single grain sanidine standards yields a variety of age spectrum shapes that are commonly not flat. For instance FC-2 shows disturbance for individual steps at about 0.3 Ma that is well resolved with high precision analysis. In general, nearly all sanidines step heated on the ARGUS VI show non-ideal behavior indicating that combinations of slight argon loss related to perhaps alteration and inclusion of perhaps excess argon bearing melt inclusions leads to overall discordance that could not be previously recognized. How we individually, and as a community capture the potential of high precision results provided by multicollector mass spectrometers is less than straightforward. What is the meaning of a 0.02% weighted mean precision when the population has an MSWD of 25? How do we parse dispersion caused by irradiation neutron gradients versus geological scatter? With scattered populations, what is the best age assignment for a geological event and how do we conclude between the young grains or old grains or the mean? Will high precision even with its scattered populations reduce or increase currently high interlaboratory dispersion? We believe that our new high precision measurements are more accurate than previous data and that interlaboratory dispersion will be reduced as a consequence and we welcome additional efforts to attain general agreement between multiple laboratories.