Cosmogenic 3 He exposure dating in mafic rocks by “Virtual mineral separation” of pyroxene

Abstract

Abstract. We describe a “virtual mineral separation” method for measuring the cosmogenic 3He concentration in pyroxene in mafic rocks that consist mainly of plagioclase and pyroxene, without physically separating the minerals. This approach is significantly faster and more cost-effective than the conventional method, which requires physical separation and purification of pyroxene grains by time-consuming and labor-intensive crushing, acid cleaning, magnetic separation, HF etching, and handpicking under a microscope. The premise of the method is that helium diffusivity is much higher in plagioclase than in pyroxene, so controlled preheating of a mixed whole-rock sample can degas 3He from plagioclase while retaining all 3He in pyroxene. A second heating step releases all 3He from pyroxene for measurement. To then obtain a 3He concentration in pyroxene rather than the whole rock, we determine the pyroxene weight fraction in the sample using X-ray computed tomography (CT). A comparison of 3He concentrations in pyroxene measured using virtual mineral separation with those measured in the same samples by physical mineral separation in previous work shows no evidence of systematic bias between the methods. Virtual mineral separation greatly simplifies the workflow for 3He exposure-dating of mafic rocks, reduces time, effort, and cost, and permits measurements on very small samples. This enables new emerging applications of exposure dating, such as quantifying stochastic surface processes, ecosystem studies, and potential subglacial bedrock exposure dating.