Articles | Volume 7, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-7-335-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/gchron-7-335-2025
Research article
 | 
07 Aug 2025
Research article |  | 07 Aug 2025

Radiometric dating of Middle Pleistocene carbonates: assessing consistency and performance of the U–Th and U–Pb dating methods

Timothy J. Pollard, Jon D. Woodhead, Russell N. Drysdale, R. Lawrence Edwards, Xianglei Li, Ashlea N. Wainwright, Mathieu Pythoud, Hai Cheng, John C. Hellstrom, Ilaria Isola, Eleonora Regattieri, Giovanni Zanchetta, and Dylan S. Parmenter

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Cited articles

Andersen, M. B., Stirling, C. H., Potter, E.-K., and Halliday, A. N.: Toward epsilon levels of measurement precision on 234U/238U by using MC-ICPMS, Int. J. Mass Spectrom., 237, 107–118, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijms.2004.07.004, 2004. a
Andersen, M. B., Romaniello, S., Vance, D., Little, S. H., Herdman, R., and Lyons, T. W.: A modern framework for the interpretation of 238U /235U in studies of ancient ocean redox, Earth Planet. Sc. Lett., 400, 184–194, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2014.05.051, 2014. a
Andersen, M. B., Elliott, T., Freymuth, H., Sims, K. W. W., Niu, Y., and Kelley, K. A.: The terrestrial uranium isotope cycle, Nature, 517, 356–359, https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14062, 2015. a
Andersen, M. B., Stirling, C. H., and Weyer, S.: Uranium isotope fractionation, Rev. Mineral. Geochem., 82, 799–850, https://doi.org/10.2138/rmg.2017.82.19, 2017. a
Bajo, P., Drysdale, R., Woodhead, J., Hellstrom, J., and Zanchetta, G.: High-resolution U–Pb dating of an Early Pleistocene stalagmite from Corchia Cave (central italy), Quat. Geochronol., 14, 5–17, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2012.10.005, 2012. a, b
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Short summary
The uranium–thorium (U–Th) and uranium–lead (U–Pb) radiometric dating methods are both suitable for dating carbonate samples ranging in age from about 400 000 to 650 000 years. Here we test agreement between the two methods by dating speleothems (i.e. secondary cave mineral deposits) that are well-suited to both methods. We demonstrate excellent agreement between them and discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses.
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