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The Noble Gases as Geochemical Tracers: History and Background

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The Noble Gases as Geochemical Tracers

Part of the book series: Advances in Isotope Geochemistry ((ADISOTOPE))

Abstract

This chapter describes the discovery of the noble gases and the development of the first instrumentation used for noble gas isotopic analysis before outlining in very general terms how noble gases are analysed in most modern laboratories. Most modern mass spectrometers use electron impact sources and magnetic sector mass filters with detection by faraday cups and electron multipliers. Some of the performance characteristics typical of these instruments are described (sensitivity, mass discrimination). Extraction of noble gases from geological samples is for the most part achieved by phase separation, by thermal extraction (furnace) or by crushing in vacuo. The extracted gases need to be purified and separated by a combination of chemical and physical methods. The principles behind different approaches to calibrating the mass spectrometers are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, BP 20, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy Cedex, France

    Pete Burnard & Laurent Zimmermann

  2. Center for Advanced Marine Research, Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Nakano, Tokyo, 164–8639, Japan

    Yuji Sano

Authors
  1. Pete Burnard
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  2. Laurent Zimmermann
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  3. Yuji Sano
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Correspondence to Pete Burnard .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochemiques, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France

    Pete Burnard

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Burnard, P., Zimmermann, L., Sano, Y. (2013). The Noble Gases as Geochemical Tracers: History and Background. In: Burnard, P. (eds) The Noble Gases as Geochemical Tracers. Advances in Isotope Geochemistry. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28836-4_1

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