摘要
Manganese oxides in association with paleo-weathering may provide significant insights into the multiple factors affecting the formation and evolution of weathering profiles, such as temperature, precipitation, and biodiversity. Laser probe step-heating analysis of supergene hollandite and cryptomelane samples collected from central Queensland, Australia, yield well-defined plateaus and consistent isochron ages, confirming the feasibilityy dating very-fined supergene manganese oxides by 40Ar/39 Ar technique. Two distinct structural sites hosting Ar isotopes can be identified in light of their degassing behaviors obtained by incremental heating analyses. The first site, releasing its gas fraction at the laser power 0.2-0.4 W, yields primarily 40Aratm, 38Aratm, and 36Aratm(atmospheric Ar isotopes). The second sites yield predominantly 40Ar*(radiogenic 40Ar), 39Ark, and Ark (nucleogenic components), at -0.5-1.0 W. There is no significant Ar gas released at the laser power higher than 1.0 W, indicating the
Manganese oxides in association with paleo-weathering may provide significant insights into the multiple factors affecting the formation and evolution of weathering profiles, such as temperature, precipitation, and biodiversity. Laser probe step-heating analysis of supergene hollandite and cryptomelane samples collected from central Queensland, Australia, yield well-defined plateaus and consistent isochron ages, confirming the feasibility dating very-fined supergene manganese oxides by40Ar/39Ar technique. Two distinct structural sites hosting Ar isotopes can be identified in light of their degassing behaviors obtained by incremental heating analyses. The first site, releasing its gas fraction at the laser power 0.2-0.4 W, yields primarily 40Aratm, 38Aratm, and 36Aratm (atmospheric Ar isotopes). The second sites yield predominantly 40Ar* (radiogenic 40Ar), 39ArK, and ArK (nucleogenic components), at -0.5-1.0 W. There is no significant Ar gas released at the laser power higher than 1.0 W, indicating the breakdown of the tunnel sites hosting the radiogenic and nucleogenic components. The excellent match between the degassing behaviors of 40Ar*, 39ArK, and 38ArK suggests that these isotopes occupy the same crystallographic sites and that 39ArK loss from the tunnel site by recoil during neutron irradiation and/or bake-out procedure preceding isotopic analysis does not occur. Present investigation supports that neither the overwhelming atmospheric 40Ar nor the very-fined nature of the supergene manganese oxides poses problems in extracting meaningful weathering geo-chronological information by analyzing supergene manganese oxides minerals.
基金
This study was supported by the National Key Research Project of China (Grant No. G1999043207-3)
ARC of Australia (Grant Nos. A39531815 and A39701507).
