U-Pb geochronology: what´s next?

Laser-ablation ICPMS U-Pb dating has proven to be of great value for many geoscience disciplines. For a long time, this technique has primarily been used to date accessory minerals such as rutile, monazite, and especially zircon. Recently, this technique has been applied to rock-forming minerals with low U and high common-Pb concentrations such as garnet or carbonates. In fact, carbonate dating is the most developed field with a few tens of publications per year from an increasing number of different laboratories. In the case of garnet dating, skarn garnet, with higher U concentrations, has proven a fruitful target for U-Pb dating; while garnet from igneous or metamorphic rocks is much more challenging due to abundant inclusions and/or extremely low U concentrations. Likewise, this technique of dating low-U minerals can also be expanded to a variety of phases never dated before.

In this talk, we will have an overview of the current and future applications of the U-Pb dating by LA-ICPMS. We will highlight the potential, feasibility and limitations of the cutting-edge technique of in-situ U-Pb dating of low-U minerals.