Articles | Volume 4, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-4-109-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-4-109-2022
Short communication/technical note
 | 
23 Feb 2022
Short communication/technical note |  | 23 Feb 2022

Short communication: Experimental factors affecting fission-track counts in apatite

Carolin Aslanian, Raymond Jonckheere, Bastian Wauschkuhn, and Lothar Ratschbacher

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Cited articles

Aslanian, C., Jonckheere, R., Wauschkuhn, B., and Ratschbacher, L.: A quantitative description of fission-track etching in apatite, Am. Mineral., 106, 518–526, 2021. 
Bhandari, N., Bhat, S. G., Lal, D., Rajagopalan, G., Tamhane, A. S. J., and Venkatavaradan, V. S.: Fission fragment tracks in apatite: recordable track lengths, Earth Planet. Sc. Lett., 13, 191–199, 1971. 
Dakowski, M.: Length distributions of fission tracks in thick crystals, Nuclear Track Detection, 2, 181–189, 1978. 
Donelick, R. A., Ketcham, R. A., and Carlson, W. D.: Variability of apatite fission-track annealing kinetics: II. Crystallographic orientation effects, Am. Mineral., 84, 1224–1234, 1999. 
Enkelmann, E., Jonckheere, R., and Wauschkuhn, B.: Independent fission-track ages (ϕ-ages) of proposed and accepted apatite age standards and a comparison of ϕ-, Z-, ζ- and ζ0-ages: Implications for method calibration, Chem. Geol., 222, 232–248, 2005. 
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Short summary
Fission tracks are damage trails from uranium fission in minerals, whose ages and thermal histories are deduced from their number and length. A mineral is etched for observing the tracks with a microscope. We show that the etching and observation conditions affect the track count and explain it in the framework of a recent etch model. We conclude that established solutions do not secure that the ages and thermal histories inferred from track counts and measurements are accurate.
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