Apatite (U–Th)/He thermochronometry using a radiation damage accumulation and annealing model

• Published in: Geochimica et cosmochimica acta 2009-04, Vol.73 (8), p.2347-2365
• Main Authors: Flowers, Rebecca M., Ketcham, Richard A., Shuster, David L., Farley, Kenneth A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0016-7037; 1872-9533
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2009.01.015

Helium diffusion from apatite is a sensitive function of the volume fraction of radiation damage to the crystal, a quantity that varies over the lifetime of the apatite. Using recently published laboratory data we develop and investigate a new kinetic model, the radiation damage accumulation and annealing model (RDAAM), that adopts the effective fission-track density as a proxy for accumulated radiation damage. This proxy incorporates creation of crystal damage proportional to α-production from U and Th decay, and the elimination of that damage governed by the kinetics of fission-track annealing. The RDAAM is a version of the helium trapping model (HeTM; Shuster D. L., Flowers R. M. and Farley K. A. (2006) The influence of natural radiation damage on helium diffusion kinetics in apatite. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 249, 148–161), calibrated by helium diffusion data in natural and partially annealed apatites. The chief limitation of the HeTM, now addressed by RDAAM, is its use of He concentration as the radiation damage proxy for circumstances in which radiation damage and He are not accumulated and lost proportionately from the crystal. By incorporating the RDAAM into the HeFTy computer program, we explore its implications for apatite (U–Th)/He thermochronometry. We show how (U–Th)/He dates predicted from the model are sensitive to both effective U concentration (eU) and details of the temperature history. The RDAAM predicts an effective He closure temperature of 62 °C for a 28 ppm eU apatite of 60 μm radius that experienced a 10 °C/Ma monotonic cooling rate; this is 8 °C lower than the 70 °C effective closure temperature predicted using commonly assumed Durango diffusion kinetics. Use of the RDAAM is most important for accurate interpretation of (U–Th)/He data for apatite suites that experienced moderate to slow monotonic cooling (1–0.1 °C/Ma), prolonged residence in the helium partial retention zone, or a duration at temperatures appropriate for radiation damage accumulation followed by reheating and partial helium loss. Under common circumstances the RDAAM predicts (U–Th)/He dates that are older, sometimes much older, than corresponding fission-track dates. Nonlinear positive correlations between apatite (U–Th)/He date and eU in apatites subjected to the same temperature history are a diagnostic signature of the RDAAM for many but not all thermal histories. Observed date-eU correlations in four different localities can be explained with the RDAAM using geo