FISSION TRACK ANALYSIS AND ITS APPLICATIONS TO GEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

TLDR

Fission track analysis, first proposed in the early 1960s, has expanded over the past decade to address a broader range of geological problems. It provides detailed low‑temperature thermal histories of rocks—below ~120 °C for apatite and ~350 °C for zircon—and is applied to sedimentary provenance, basin thermal history, orogenic structural evolution, and continental denudation. These advances stem from a deeper understanding of the temperature dependence of fission‑track annealing and the informational content of fission‑track length distributions.

Abstract

▪ Abstract Fission track analysis as a geological dating tool was first proposed in the early 1960s. The past 10 years has seen a major expansion in application to more general geological problems. This reflects advances in understanding the temperature dependence of fission track annealing and of the information contained in fission track length distributions. Fission track analysis provides detailed information on the low-temperature thermal histories of rocks, below ∼120°C for tracks in apatite and below ∼350°C for zircon. Fission track analysis has been applied to a variety of geological problems, including sedimentary provenance, thermal history modeling of sedimentary basins, structural evolution of orogenic belts, and long-term continental denudation.