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OnTrack The electronic newsletter of the international thermochronology community OnTrack 29 - Nov 2007 (Vol 15, Issue 1) Editor: Konstanze Stübner, Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany
Subeditor: Matthias Raab, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Editorial
News from the Ontrackforum Announcements, news, and scientific reports dominate the second electronic issue of OnTrack (Volume 15, Issue 29). Max Zattin provides an informative digest of the Pisa workshop held in September 2007, where the track-length intercalibration experiment organized by Rich Ketcham was one exciting event. We expect news of the outcome in an article or in his forum thread (registered users only). Autoscan informs us of the installation of automated fission-track counting systems in Dublin and in Geneva, hopefully soon to be followed by first experiences. Matthias Daszinnies, who defended his PhD thesis in December 2006, contributes a geological track investigation of the Phanerozoic of northern Mozambique. Since the launch of the online platform, the OnTrack newsletter is distributed via email to all registered users (166 and counting). Emails are automatically generated, so please make sure that the newsletter doesn't end up in your spam folder. Editing this issue has been fun and rewarding. Technical problems were solved thanks to the continuous support of Matthias Raab. After the next issue, the OnTrack editorship passes to a successor. Volunteers are most welcome; lack of experience with online platforms is not an obstacle. Please continue to post comments, ideas, suggestions, etc. to the forum. And...Read More >>
Workshop
Notes from the First Workshop of the IGCP543Low Temperature Thermochronology: Applications and Interlaboratory Calibration Zattin M., Balestrieri M.L., Hasebe N., Ketcham R., Seward D., Sobel E., Spiegel C. During the last week of September, 2007, the thermochronology community met in the Research Area of the CNR (the Italian National Research Council) in Pisa. The meeting was organized in the framework of the IGCP543 project: ?Low-temperature thermochronology: applications and inter-laboratory calibration?. The chosen location was highly symbolic since Pisa was the city where 27 years ago the first international meeting on fission-track analysis was organized. The meeting was split into a workshop preceded by a two days short-course in which the basics of the method were presented. The list of participants (45 people) can be found on the web site of the meeting (www.geomin.unibo.it/ft/workshop.htm). The short-course was attended by 18 students. Ten students were from developing and emerging countries and were supported by funds from IGCP and sponsors. One of the main topics of the workshop, and, more generally, of the project, was related to interlaboratory calibration of track length measurements. Another debated issue was related to the development of new techniques. Much of the discussion was about the use of LA-ICP-MS to avoid the having to employ irradiation. Additionally, Barry Kohn announced and illustrated a methodology for automatic counting...Read More >>
Conference
FT2008 Alaska - 11th International Conference on thermochronometry The 11th International Conference on thermochronometry will be held from 15-19 September 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska. The venue is The Hotel Captain Cook in downtown Anchorage. This meeting will focus on the theory and application of low-temperature thermochronometry. This is an exciting time in low-temperature thermal studies because of the explosion of helium dating and how it has integrated with well-established fission-track thermochronology. In addition, the rapid development of analytical equipment is transforming the discipline by increasing analytical precision and sample throughput. We anticipate the following theme sessions to be the scientific focus of the meeting: New analytical developments in helium dating and fission-track analysis Thermochronology of orogenic belts Detrital thermochronology, provenance, and basin analysis Thermochronology of sedimentary basins Kinetics and thermal modeling The thermotectonic framework of Alaska and adjacent areas. During the meeting there will be a one-day trip across the Kenai Peninsula to Seward, Alaska. On this excursion, we will see the geology of accreted terranes, Exit Glacier, and the stunning scenery in Prince William Sound. Participants are also urged to take a 2-3 day trip before or after the meeting to Denali National Park, and details will follow on how...Read More >>
PhD Thesis
The Phanerozoic thermo-tectonic evolution of northern Mozambique constrained by 40Ar/39Ar, fission track and (U-Th)/He analyses Matthias Ch. Daszinnies University of Bremen, Germany Supervised by Joachim Jacobs and Benjamin Emmel Results of thermochronometric investigations comprising 40Ar/39Ar hornblende and biotite, titanite and apatite fission track (FT) and apatite (U-Th)/He dating on 102 rock samples from northern Mozambique record the basement?s cooling and denudation history since Early Palaeozoic times. The thermochronlogical results place new temporal and geometric constraints on Gondwana?s initial rift setting and on the subsequent drift evolution of the sheared continental margin of central East Africa. Furthermore, the results highlight the influence exerted by the ductile Pan-African age basement structures on the loci of tectonically active zones since the Late Palaeozoic. 40Ar/39Ar hornblende and biotite ages range from c. 542 Ma to 456 Ma and c. 448 Ma to 428 Ma, respectively. They record the slow cooling (~11-7?C/Ma) between 525?C to 300?C from the latest Pan-African metamorphism, presumably related to the formation of the Namama Thrust Belt at c. 550-500 Ma, in Early to Late Ordovician times. Locally, the thermal influences of syn- to post-tectonic granitoid / pegmatite emplacements at about 500‑450 Ma delayed cooling. Widespread...Read More >>
Facilities/Equipment
Automated fission track countingFirst Autoscan automated fission track counting systems installed at University of Geneva, Switzerland and Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland In a world-first, two new Autoscan automated fission track counting systems were installed during November 2007: one in the Department of Mineralogy at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, and one in the Geology Department at Trinity College at the University of Dublin. Richard Spikings, who is in charge of the laboratory in Geneva, will be known to most fission trackers as the Editor of OnTrack for 1999/2000, when he was working at ETH Zurich. In March 2001, Richard left ETH to work at the University of Potsdam in Germany. In March 2002, Richard moved to Geneva to develop a thermochronology laboratory at the University of Geneva. David Chew, who is in charge of the laboratory in Trinity College Dublin, was a post-doctoral researcher in Geneva from 2003-5. He returned to Dublin in late 2005, where he is presently a lecturer. His research interests are thermochronology and geochronology. The two systems just installed are based on the state-of-the-art Carl Zeiss AxioImager Z1m microscope, using the Autoscan AS3000i/f stage system in conjunction with Sony linear sensors for improved positioning accuracy,...Read More >>
Newsflash
Dear Fission Trackers, As of 23 October 2007, Autoscan Systems will officially have a new website, which will be located at www.autoscan.com . This website overhaul has been long overdue. Our first website, www.autoscan.com.au , was first set up in 1995, using a simple text editor (UltraEdit?), and cutting code directly in html. Many changes have occurred since then: some have taken place in the technology of our product lines (due to improvements in system elements such as cameras, PCs, monitors, microscopes and linear sensors), some have taken place in new server technologies which enable new and exciting website features (our current website uses the content management system Joomla? with the assistance of an SQL? database), and some have taken place in our client base (with new disciplines being steadily added to our customer skills). Finally, some changes are the result of our policy of continuing product technology improvements, such as the development of the use of Sony linear motion sensors for greatly improved stage accuracy and SIS/Olympus high-resolution digital cameras for substantially enhanced image quality. These developments were the result of a long and fruitful collaboration with the FTD group at the Max Planck Institute and later Heidelberg University, both in Heidelberg,...Read More >>
Workshop
On November 14-16 the following short course/workshop will be held in Amsterdam: Isotope provenance analyses: detrital thermochronology - techniques and applications Gavin Foster Bristol University, Yani Najman Lancaster University, Cornelia Spiegel Universit?t Bremen, Jan Wijbrans Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. This workshop is designed for advanced level postgraduate students and others interested in the detrital approach. The workshop concentrates on the use of isotopic techniques applied to detrital material, in order to determine provenance and hinterland evolution and erosion. Topics covered include applications of the following techniques: U-Pb, Hf, (U-Th)/He, fission track, Sm-Nd and Ar-Ar. Format will include lectures, practical exercises and lab tours. There will be no course fee charged to PhD students. (course summary ) ? ...Read More >>
Revealing upper plate dynamics by looking at fission tracks from the lower plate sediments – an approach for the Southern Chile Trench Bianca Heberer (Univ. Freiburg, Germany), supervised by Jan Behrmann (GEOMAR Kiel, Germany) and Meinert Rahn (HSK, Switzerland)An apatite fission track study is carried out on marine gravity core samples taken along the Chilean trench axis from 31 to 47 deg S in order to address the spatial variation of denudation and hinterland dynamics. The study area comprises the Chile triple junction in the South, where the currently spreading Chile Rise is being subducted underneath the South American Plate causing an enhanced uplift of the forearc. The current plate tectonic setting produces an increase of ocean floor ages of the lower subducting Nazca Plate north of the triple junction, thus a different thermal and mechanical behavior, which is expected to be visible in the uplift of the upper plate. Gravity cores were taken from the trench fans at the bottom of submarine canyons, which are fed by turbidity currents. Within those fans along-trench sediment mixing processes are believed to be of minor importance. Assumptions about the denudation of the upper plate are limited to those areas...Read More >>