Assessment of USGS BCR-2 as a Reference Material for Silicate Rock U-Pa Disequilibrium Measurements

J Prytulak, TR Elliott, DL Hoffmann, CD Coath

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The accuracy of 231Pa-235U measurements can be readily assessed using a secular equilibrium reference material (RM), but a secular equilibrium RM is also required to calibrate the 233Pa spike used in 231Pa determinations. The only silicate RM commonly accepted to be in secular equilibrium is Table Mountain Latite (TML) and so an additional reference is required. Our measurements on the widely available USGS BCR-2 (Basalt Columbia River) rock powder yielded (231Pa/235U) = 0.997 ± 0.013 2s (n = 10), indicating its value as a secondary reference to test the fidelity of U-Pa determinations. Such a reference material additionally provides a useful check on data reduction, which our literature survey highlights can lead to discrepancies of up to 53% between reported (231Pa/235U) activity ratios and corresponding U and Pa concentration data.
Translated title of the contributionAssessment of USGS BCR-2 as a Reference Material for Silicate Rock U-Pa Disequilibrium Measurements
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)55 - 63
Number of pages9
JournalGeostandards and Geoanalytical Research
Volume32 (1)
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2008

Bibliographical note

Publisher: Blackwell

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