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Author Topic:   The radiometric dating of basalts
Minnemooseus
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Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 1 of 10 (519654)
08-15-2009 9:19 PM


Back in my geology school days in the mid to late 70's, my understanding was that basaltic rocks were unsuitable for radiometric dating. This is because concentrations of elements such as Uranium (U), Rubidium (Rb), and Potassium (K) are too low in such mafic rocks.
But I now see members referring to radiometric datings of oceanic crust rocks that I must presume to be basaltic. I have done searches to try to determine how these datings are done, but have never been able to find anything.
So, the question is, how are these basaltic rock datings done?
Moose

Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
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Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by JonF, posted 08-16-2009 9:13 AM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied
 Message 7 by dwise1, posted 04-21-2012 4:06 AM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied
 Message 8 by Boof, posted 04-21-2012 8:03 AM Minnemooseus has replied

  
Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 9 of 10 (665399)
06-12-2012 9:30 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Boof
04-21-2012 8:03 AM


Re: Dating Basalt
Thank you for this message. I think it answers what I was looking for. All hail the mighty SHRIMP (Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe).
Comments about other messages:
JonF, in message 3, just overwhelmed me. Thanks for the effort, but more than I was looking for.
JonF writes:
Also a Google Scholar Search turns up bunches of hits.
I think I was trying to use scirus.com, which is heavily slanted towards searching the real technical journals (not the Google Scholar isn't). Anyway, Scirus just didn't work for me.
Dewise1, in message 7:
Dewise1 writes:
My understanding of your OP is that it's basalt in continental plates that are unsuitable for dating because they are too old, which would cause concentrations of the elements you list to be too low. ...
My college geology was in the mid to late 1970's. At the time (or the technology of the time), basalts of any age just didn't have the needed minerals and/or elements in useful concentrations.
Thanks again, for all your efforts.
Moose
Edited by Minnemooseus, : Add wikipedia SHRIMP link (even though Boof did have the same in his message.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 10 by Coragyps, posted 06-12-2012 10:42 PM Minnemooseus has seen this message but not replied

  
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