Fission track dating is a

radiometric dating Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when they were formed. The method compares ...

technique based on analyses of the damage trails, or tracks, left by fission fragments in certain

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

-bearing

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

s and

glass Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...

es. Fission-track dating is a relatively simple method of radiometric dating that has made a significant impact on understanding the thermal history of

continental crust Continental crust is the layer of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks that forms the geological continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as continental shelves. This layer is sometimes called '' sial'' be ...

, the timing of

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plat ...

events, and the source and age of different

archeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

artifacts. The method involves using the number of fission events produced from the spontaneous decay of

uranium-238 Uranium-238 (238U or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature, with a relative abundance of 99%. Unlike uranium-235, it is non-fissile, which means it cannot sustain a chain reaction in a thermal-neutron reactor. However ...

in common accessory minerals to date the time of rock cooling below

closure temperature In radiometric dating, closure temperature or blocking temperature refers to the temperature of a system, such as a mineral, at the time given by its radiometric date. In physical terms, the closure temperature is the temperature at which a syste ...

. Fission tracks are sensitive to heat, and therefore the technique is useful at unraveling the thermal evolution of rocks and minerals. Most current research using fission tracks is aimed at: a) understanding the evolution of mountain belts; b) determining the source or

provenance Provenance (from the French ''provenir'', 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses i ...

of sediments; c) studying the thermal evolution of

basins Basin may refer to: Geography and geology * Depression (geology) ** Back-arc basin, a submarine feature associated with island arcs and subduction zones ** Debris basin, designed to prevent damage from debris flow ** Drainage basin (hydrology), a ...

; d) determining the age of poorly dated

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as e ...

; and e) dating and provenance determination of archeological artifacts.

Method

Unlike other isotopic dating methods, the "

daughter A daughter is a female offspring; a girl or a woman in relation to her parents. Daughterhood is the state of being someone's daughter. The male counterpart is a son. Analogously the name is used in several areas to show relations between groups ...

" in fission track dating is an effect in the

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macro ...

rather than a daughter isotope.

Uranium-238 Uranium-238 (238U or U-238) is the most common isotope of uranium found in nature, with a relative abundance of 99%. Unlike uranium-235, it is non-fissile, which means it cannot sustain a chain reaction in a thermal-neutron reactor. However ...

undergoes

spontaneous fission Spontaneous fission (SF) is a form of radioactive decay that is found only in very heavy chemical elements. The nuclear binding energy of the elements reaches its maximum at an atomic mass number of about 56 (e.g., iron-56); spontaneous breakd ...

decay at a known rate, and it is the only isotope with a decay rate that is relevant to the significant production of natural fission tracks; other isotopes have fission decay rates too slow to be of consequence. The fragments emitted by this fission process leave trails of damage (fossil tracks or

ion track Ion tracks are damage-trails created by swift heavy ions penetrating through solids, which may be sufficiently-contiguous for chemical etching in a variety of crystalline, glassy, and/or polymeric solids. They are associated with cylindrical d ...

s) in the

crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of the ordered arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from the intrinsic nature of the constituent particles to form symmetric pattern ...

of the mineral that contains the uranium. The process of track production is essentially the same by which swift heavy ions produce ion tracks. Chemical etching of polished internal surfaces of these minerals reveals spontaneous fission tracks, and the track density can be determined. Because etched tracks are relatively large (in the range 1 to 15 micrometres), counting can be done by

optical microscopy Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

, although other imaging techniques are used. The density of fossil tracks correlates with the cooling age of the sample and with uranium content, which needs to be determined independently. To determine the uranium content, several methods have been used. One method is by

neutron irradiation Neutron activation is the process in which neutron radiation induces radioactivity in materials, and occurs when atomic nuclei capture free neutrons, becoming heavier and entering excited states. The excited nucleus decays immediately by emittin ...

, where the sample is irradiated with

thermal neutrons The neutron detection temperature, also called the neutron energy, indicates a free neutron's kinetic energy, usually given in electron volts. The term ''temperature'' is used, since hot, thermal and cold neutrons are moderated in a medium wi ...

in a nuclear reactor, with an external detector, such as

mica Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into extremely thin elastic plates. This characteristic is described as perfect basal cleavage. Mica is ...

, affixed to the grain surface. The neutron irradiation induces fission of

uranium-235 Uranium-235 (235U or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exi ...

in the sample, and the resulting induced tracks are used to determine the uranium content of the sample because the ²³⁵U:²³⁸U ratio is well known and assumed constant in nature. However, it is not always constant. To determine the number of induced fission events that occurred during neutron irradiation an external detector is attached to the sample and both sample and detector are simultaneously irradiated by

. The external detector is typically a low-uranium mica flake, but plastics such as CR-39 have also been used. The resulting induced fission of the uranium-235 in the sample creates induced tracks in the overlying external detector, which are later revealed by chemical etching. The ratio of spontaneous to induced tracks is proportional to the age. Another method of determining uranium concentration is through LA-ICPMS, a technique where the crystal is hit with a laser beam and ablated, and then the material is passed through a

mass spectrometer Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is us ...

Applications

Unlike many other dating techniques, fission-track dating is uniquely suited for determining low-temperature thermal events using common accessory minerals over a very wide geological range (typically 0.1 Ma to 2000 Ma).

Apatite Apatite is a group of phosphate minerals, usually hydroxyapatite, fluorapatite and chlorapatite, with high concentrations of OH−, F− and Cl− ions, respectively, in the crystal. The formula of the admixture of the three most common ...

, sphene,

zircon Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of t ...

, micas and

glass typically contain enough uranium to be useful in dating samples of relatively young age (

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretace ...

and

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configu ...

) and are the materials most useful for this technique. Additionally low-uranium

epidote Epidote is a calcium aluminium iron sorosilicate mineral. Description Well developed crystals of epidote, Ca2Al2(Fe3+;Al)(SiO4)(Si2O7)O(OH), crystallizing in the monoclinic system, are of frequent occurrence: they are commonly prismatic in ...

s and

garnet Garnets () are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives. All species of garnets possess similar physical properties and crystal forms, but differ in chemical composition. The different ...

s may be used for very old samples (

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ...

Precambrian The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of th ...

). The fission-track dating technique is widely used in understanding the thermal evolution of the upper crust, especially in mountain belts. Fission tracks are preserved in a crystal when the ambient temperature of the rock falls below the annealing temperature. This annealing temperature varies from mineral to mineral and is the basis for determining low-temperature vs. time histories. While the details of closure temperatures are complicated, they are approximately 70 to 110 °C for typical apatite, c. 230 to 250 °C for zircon, and c. 300 °C for titanite. Because heating of a sample above the annealing temperature causes the fission damage to heal or anneal, the technique is useful for dating the most recent cooling event in the history of the sample. This resetting of the clock can be used to investigate the thermal history of basin

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand ...

s, kilometer-scale exhumation caused by

tectonism Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents k ...

and

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is d ...

, low temperature

metamorphic Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causi ...

events, and geothermal

vein Veins are blood vessels in humans and most other animals that carry blood towards the heart. Most veins carry deoxygenated blood from the tissues back to the heart; exceptions are the pulmonary and umbilical veins, both of which carry oxygenated ...

formation. The fission track method has also been used to date

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

sites and artifacts. It was used to confirm the potassium-argon dates for the deposits at

Olduvai Gorge The Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. A steep-si ...

Provenance analysis of detrital grains

A number of datable minerals occur as common detrital grains in sandstones, and if the strata have not been buried too deeply, these minerals grains retain information about the source rock. Fission track analysis of these minerals provides information about the thermal evolution of the source rocks and therefore can be used to understand

and the evolution of mountain belts that shed the sediment. This technique of detrital analysis is most commonly applied to zircon because it is very common and robust in the sedimentary system, and in addition it has a relatively high annealing temperature so that in many sedimentary basins the crystals are not reset by later heating. Fission-track dating of detrital zircon is a widely applied analytical tool used to understand the tectonic evolution of source terrains that have left a long and continuous erosional record in adjacent basin strata. Early studies focused on using the cooling ages in detrital zircon from stratigraphic sequences to document the timing and rate of erosion of rocks in adjacent orogenic belts (mountain ranges). A number of recent studies have combined U/Pb and/or Helium dating (U+Th/He) on single crystals to document the specific history of individual crystals. This double-dating approach is an extremely powerful provenance tool because a nearly complete crystal history can be obtained, and therefore researchers can pinpoint specific source areas with distinct geologic histories with relative certainty. Fission-track ages on detrital zircon can be as young as 1 Ma to as old as 2000 Ma.

Method

Applications

Provenance analysis of detrital grains

See also

References

Further reading