InterCarb: A Community Effort to Improve Interlaboratory Standardization of the Carbonate Clumped Isotope Thermometer Using Carbonate Standards


Date

2021-05

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

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Data

Abstract

Increased use and improved methodology of carbonate clumped isotope thermometry has greatly enhanced our ability to interrogate a suite of Earth-system processes. However, interlaboratory discrepancies in quantifying carbonate clumped isotope (Δ47) measurements persist, and their specific sources remain unclear. To address interlaboratory differences, we first provide consensus values from the clumped isotope community for four carbonate standards relative to heated and equilibrated gases with 1,819 individual analyses from 10 laboratories. Then we analyzed the four carbonate standards along with three additional standards, spanning a broad range of δ47 and Δ47 values, for a total of 5,329 analyses on 25 individual mass spectrometers from 22 different laboratories. Treating three of the materials as known standards and the other four as unknowns, we find that the use of carbonate reference materials is a robust method for standardization that yields interlaboratory discrepancies entirely consistent with intralaboratory analytical uncertainties. Carbonate reference materials, along with measurement and data processing practices described herein, provide the carbonate clumped isotope community with a robust approach to achieve interlaboratory agreement as we continue to use and improve this powerful geochemical tool. We propose that carbonate clumped isotope data normalized to the carbonate reference materials described in this publication should be reported as Δ47 (I-CDES) values for Intercarb-Carbon Dioxide Equilibrium Scale.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

22 (5)

Pages / Article No.

Publisher

Wiley

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

carbonate; clumped isotopes; interlaboratory calibration; mass spectrometry; reference materials

Organisational unit

08806 - Bernasconi, Stefano (Tit.-Prof.) check_circle
09601 - Stoll, Heather / Stoll, Heather check_circle

Notes

Funding

143485 - Application of Clumped Isotope Thermometry to burial diagenetic and low temperature hydrothermal systems. (SNF)
160046 - Clumped Isotope Thermometry in burial diagenetic systems - part 2: new constraints on the kinetics of 13C-18O bond reordering from contact metamorphic aureoles of magmatic intrusions (SNF)

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