Methods Development for In Situ Laser-Ablation Pb and Sr Isotopic Analyses Using a Double-Focusing Single-Collector ICPMS

Abstract:

Laser-ablation (LA) ICPMS isotopic analyses of Pb and Sr in geological materials have mostly used multi-collector instruments equipped with Faraday-type detectors (e.g., [1-3]). The main limitation of this approach is that samples with relatively high concentrations of Pb and Sr are typically required. Here we present the development of analytical methods for the accurate and precise in situ measurement of Pb and Sr isotope ratios in relatively low-concentration samples using a laser ablation system (193-nm excimer laser) with a double-focusing single-collector (SC) ICPMS (Nu AttoM^TM). Our methods build on published techniques [4-6] that used different LA-SC-ICPMS instrumentation to demonstrate the benefits of fast-scanning ion-counting measurements combined with flat-top peaks. We have paid special attention to the characterization and correction of instrumental artifacts using solutions of the NIST SRM981 Pb and SRM987 Sr standards in “wet plasma” mode. For Pb, this includes correcting for the interference of ²⁰⁴Hg on ²⁰⁴Pb, characterizing the effects of tails from thallium (at masses 203 and 205) on the Pb peaks, evaluating the stability of the instrumental mass bias, and maintaining linearity of the detector response over the full dynamic range. For Sr, this includes correcting for the interference of ⁸⁶Kr on ⁸⁶Sr and ⁸⁷Rb on ⁸⁷Sr, verifying the accuracy of an internal correction for instrumental mass bias, and calibrating the ion optics scanning parameters. LA-SC-ICPMS results for Pb and Sr isotopic measurements of international glass standards and newly developed in-house mineral and glass reference materials will be presented.

[1] Davidson et al. (2001) EPSL 184, 427-442. [2] Ramos et al. (2004) Chem. Geol. 211, 135-158. [3] Simon et al. (2007) GCA 71, 2014-2035. [4] Jochum et al. (2005) IJMS 242, 281-289. [5] Jochum et al. (2006) JAAS 21, 666-675. [6] Jochum et al. (2009) JAAS 24, 1237-1243.