Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods

DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_202-1
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Uranium–Lead, Igneous Rocks

Donald W. Davis*
Department of Earth Sciences, Earth Sciences Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Definition
The measurement of magma crystallization ages for volcanic and plutonic rocks using the
uranium–lead radioactive decay system.

Introduction
The crust is dominated by igneous rocks, which record ancient geologic processes. Precise dating is
one of the most powerful tools for understanding crust formation and is the widest application of
radiometric geochronology. The ages of igneous rocks are measured by dating minerals that
contain radiogenic daughter elements.
The U–Pb system is considered the most robust and useful geochronometer for igneous rocks
largely because of the mineral zircon (ZrSiO4, Fig. 1, and Cross-Reference ▶ Uranium–Lead,
Zircon), which contains high trace levels of U and strongly rejects Pb during crystallization.
Therefore, present-day Pb within it is dominantly radiogenic. Initial Pb in a newly crystallized
mineral, called common Pb, can be distinguished because it has a different isotopic composition
from the radiogenic Pb. Zircon is a common and easily recoverable trace mineral in siliceous
igneous rocks such as granitoid plutons and felsic volcanics that are widespread in continental and
arc environments. Partial melting of older rocks buried deep in the crust may not completely
destroy their zircon, which is often preserved as older cores in younger rocks that crystallize from
the melt. This zircon is overgrown by a phase giving the age of the melt, while the cores preserve
the age of the original rock or protolith. The presence of older zircon in a younger population is
called inheritance. It can be a significant problem in age interpretation but is also a source of
information on the provenance of the magma.
Other minerals favorable for U–Pb geochronology include baddeleyite (ZrO2, Fig. 2) and
monazite (CePO4). Baddeleyite is common in mafic rocks, such as gabbro and diabase dykes,
which normally do not contain zircon. Like zircon, baddeleyite contains several hundred ppm of
U and essentially no common Pb. Unlike zircon, it is resistant to Pb loss and gives accurate ages on
very tiny grains. Monazite is low in common Pb, normally contains high U concentrations
(>1,000 ppm), and is relatively resistant to Pb loss. It is however much rarer than zircon, occurring
mostly in highly evolved crustal rocks such as granites produced from the melting of sediments.
Titanite, rutile, apatite, perovskite, and columbite-tantalite can also be suitable for U–Pb dating but
contain relatively high common Pb concentrations. The first three are common trace minerals but
may be susceptible to metamorphic growth and resetting. The last two are relatively rare.

*Email: dond@es.utoronto.ca

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Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_202-1
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Fig. 1 Pristine zircon from a late Archean (2,732 Ma) quartz diorite in northwest Ontario, Canada

Methods
The most precise method of U–Pb dating is by isotope dilution (ID). This involves dissolving
a mineral grain, chemically separating the U and Pb, and determining the amount of the isotopes by
mixing them with a known quantity of an enriched isotope, called the spike, and measuring the
isotopic composition. Isotopes are usually measured by thermal ionization mass spectrometry
(TIMS) or multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS). Methods
of sample treatment were introduced for avoiding altered, disturbed zircon domains to achieve
accurate results (Krogh 1982; Mattinson 2005). The secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) was
developed to measure ages of individual domains within polished zircon crystals at the scale of tens
of microns. The earliest model is known as the SHRIMP (Compston 1999) and has continued to be
developed along with other models (e.g., Rollinson and Whitehouse 2011). Laser ablation induc-
tively coupled plasma mass spectrometers (LA-ICPMS) were developed more recently and have
similar capabilities (e.g., Alves et al. 2013) although they still require more sample than SIMS and
produce a deeper ablation spot (tens of microns compared to 1–2 microns for SIMS). Although spot
zircon ages generally have less precision than ID analyses, they are much faster to obtain and they
allow older cores and younger overgrowths to be readily dated within complex zircon grains.
Currently, U–Pb ages can be routinely determined to a 95 % confidence level of about 0.05 % or
better from single zircon grains by ID and 0.5 % by SIMS and LA-ICPMS from 20 to 30 micron
diameter spots on polished zircon.

Fig. 2 Brownish baddeleyite crystals from an 1,109 Ma gabbro sill associated with the Midcontinent Rift, northwest
Ontario, Canada

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Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods
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# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Applications

Precambrian Greenstone Belts

The Precambrian makes up about 80 % of geologic time but contains few fossils. It comprises the
continental shields where many of the rocks are deformed into linear structures known as green-
stone belts. One of the first successful applications of high-precision U–Pb dating was to unravel
the chronology of Archean greenstone belts so as to understand the development of the early crust.
The necessity of eliminating secondary Pb loss from zircon and achieving the age accuracy
required to resolve timing of eruptions within an average greenstone belt (about 1 Ma) was
a major incentive for developing the air abrasion method for achieving accurate results on zircon
(Krogh 1982) and for improving chemical separation methods so that single grains could be dated.
Much of this early work was carried out in the Superior Province (e.g., Corfu et al. 1989; Davis
et al. 1989). It provided evidence for a north to south progression of late plutonism and deforma-
tion, suggesting that the craton formed by accretion of oceanic arc and micro-continental terranes
through plate tectonic processes broadly similar to those operating today.

Geologic Time Scale

The geologic time scale was historically based on relative dating of sedimentary rocks using fossils
that can be correlated from units in different areas and ranked in relative age using superposition of
stratigraphically higher (younger) over lower (older) units. Arthur Holmes promoted the early
development and application of U–Pb dating and was able to publish surprisingly accurate ages for
the principal geologic periods in his booklet “Age of the Earth” (1927). At this time, before precise
mass spectrometry, it was necessary to use chemical methods to measure U and Pb in rare highly
radioactive minerals found in granites and pegmatites. Determining time intervals and rates of
geologic processes requires the most precise ages, and a great deal of recent work is directed toward
dating important fossil-based marker units, such as mass extinction boundaries. Possible correla-
tions with large igneous and meteorite impact events can be tested using precise geochronology in
order to understand the driving forces of evolution. This work requires precisely dated zircon from
thin volcanic ash layers within sedimentary rocks. Early work on the Paleozoic time scale was
carried out by Tucker et al. (1990) using ID-TIMS and Compston and Williams (1992) using SIMS.
This led to much debate over discrepancies that were later traced to problems, now resolved, with
the SIMS standard zircon.
The largest known mass extinction occurred at the end of the Permian period just before the
beginning of the Triassic. Well-preserved stratigraphic sections in China contain numerous
volcanic ash beds in latest Permian strata that have been a focus of recent work in precise zircon
dating. They have allowed the extinction event to be dated at 252.28  0.08 (Shen et al. 2011).
Volcanic and plutonic rocks associated with the early stages of the Siberian flood basalts, the
largest known volcanic province, have given similar ages (Kamo et al. 2003). This coincidence
suggests that the extinction was caused by a rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 level at the
beginning of volcanism and therefore that major igneous events can cause mass extinctions.
A similar correlation has been found between the Triassic-Jurassic extinction at 201.3  0.2 Ma
and eruption of the Central Atlantic magmatic province at 201.38  0.02 Ma (Schoene et al. 2010).
The necessity of achieving the highest possible levels of precision for dating such samples was
a major driving force for developing the chemical abrasion method to isolate pristine zircon
(Mattinson 2005).

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# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Plutonism
The proportional error of U–Pb ages is approximately independent of the absolute age, so that the
absolute error is smaller in younger rocks. While age errors not much better than 1 Ma can be
routinely achieved for Archean rocks, errors of 0.1 to 0.01 Ma can be achieved for ages of
100 Ma or younger. This has allowed detailed study of the construction of young composite felsic
intrusions such as in Leuthold et al. (2012), Schoene et al. (2012), and Matzel at al. (2006) where
the age range for batholith emplacement was determined by dating individual plutonic phases with
errors of 10–50 Ka. A similar study successfully resolved emplacement of components of the
56 Ma Skaergaard layered mafic intrusion over a time scale of 100 Ka (Wotslaw et al. 2012). Such
studies reveal details that were masked by the limited precision of earlier dating. Emplacement and
crystallization of large plutons can no longer be considered instantaneous but are seen to proceed
over a time span of tens of thousands years during which different generations of zircon crystallize
(autocrysts from extended crystallization within a magma chamber and antecrysts from earlier
batches of magma), in addition to much older zircon incorporated from host rock (xenocrysts).

Ages of Ophiolites and Ocean Crust Accretion

Basalt is the most common rock type on Earth’s surface, but most of it is found in the oceanic crust,
which is continually being produced at mid-ocean ridges and recycled into the mantle at subduction
zones. Consequently, the oldest parts of actively spreading ocean crust are only about 200 Ma, far
younger than ages preserved on unsubductable continental crust. However, fragments of ancient
oceanic crust have in the past been thrust onto continents and preserved from subduction. Such
fragments are called “ophiolites.” Most are thought to have originated in small ocean basins that
formed in extensional environments between oceanic arcs and continental margins. They were
thrust (obducted) onto the adjacent continent in continental collision zones. Some ophiolites
provide an exposed section through ocean crust, which is otherwise inaccessible to observation
except through ocean drilling. Therefore, they have been a key source of information on the
structure and formation of the ocean basins. They are also useful as indicators of the position of
previous ocean basins in ancient collision zones, such as the Paleozoic (ca.500–350 Ma) Caledo-
nian-Appalachian orogen in Newfoundland. Although the major product of mid-ocean ridges is
basalt and gabbro, mafic magma in large chambers can sometimes differentiate into plagiogranite
or tonalite, which contains abundant zircon. Such samples were used by Dunning and Krogh (1985)
to date ophiolites associated with the pre-Atlantic Iapetus Ocean. A more recent study by Rioux
et al. (2012a) dated zircon from gabbro in the Oman-United Arab Emirates ophiolite at the level of
20 Ka and showed that magmatism lasted over the interval ca. 96.4–95.5 Ma, providing
constraints on spreading rate. Zircon from gabbro dredged at actively spreading ocean crust in
the East Pacific Rise was dated over the range 142–127 Ka with errors of 6 to 80 Ka (Rioux
et al. 2012b), and in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge over the range 290–90 Ka with similar errors
(Lissenburg et al. 2012). At this level of precision, the age spread within samples probably reflects
the time scale of crystallization of the gabbro plutons.

Large Igneous Provinces and Continental Reconstruction

Although differentiated gabbros and gabbro pegmatite can contain zircon, the realization that
baddeleyite (ZrO2) is a widespread trace mineral in mafic intrusive rocks (Heaman and
Lecheminant 1993) allowed more general application of U–Pb geochronology to mafic igneous
rock. Application of baddeleyite dating continued to be relatively rare until Soderlund and
Johansson (2002) developed an improved method for recovering tiny baddeleyite crystals on the
Wilfley table (a shaking table routinely used to concentrate heavy minerals such as zircon from

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Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_202-1
# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

rock powders). One of the earliest applications of baddeleyite geochronology is Krogh et al. (1987).
Davis and Sutcliffe (1985) dated early mafic plutonism associated with the 1,100 Ma Midcontinent
Rift (MCR) using both zircon and baddeleyite, which both occur in the same mafic sill.
Mafic rocks in the continental crust tend to be concentrated in Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs)
that are thought to have been caused by rapid massive basaltic eruptions due to decompression
melting of the mantle during the ascent of mantle plumes. In many cases these events led to
continental breakup and the formation of new ocean basins. Continental flood basalts associated
with such events in the Precambrian are often eroded away but leave the source channels through
which the magma ascended exposed as giant radiating dyke swarms. Evidence suggests that
emplacement of these swarms was rapid (1 Ma or less, Lecheminant and Heaman 1989), so they
form markers whose paleomagnetic directions can be used to define a polar wander path for the
drifting continents, provided that their ages are precisely known. The latest work is focused on
using ages to identify fragments of the same dyke swarms on different continents that drifted apart
sometime after emplacement of the swarms. Their orientation can be used as a “bar code” to help fit
the continental fragments together into their pre-rift configuration (e.g., French and Heaman 2010;
Nilsson et al. 2010; Soderlund et al. 2010).

Conclusions
The 60-year history of modern U–Pb geochronology of igneous rocks has produced an enormous
amount of age data without which much of the progress in understanding ancient geological
processes would not have been possible. Different methods of U–Pb dating (ID-TIMS, SIMS,
LA-ICPMS) have been developed, but it is generally recognized that they have complementary
strengths and weaknesses, so the best approach is to use them where they are most effective.
Accuracy and sensitivity continue to improve with better instrumentation and understanding. It can
be expected that sub-million-year age resolution will become available throughout the time scale,
providing new insights into planetary development.

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# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

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