Dating of carbonates in geological studies: advances, challenges, and future developments

Perach Nuriel - University of Geneva

Carbonates are forming in various geological environments including marine, lacustrine, terrestrial, volcanic, or hydrothermal systems. Their precipitation as vein filling, breccia cement and fault coating also accompanied tectonic processes. In my research I demonstrate that such samples are often texturally complex at the sub-millimeter scale, with either slow-continues or multi-phase growth. The in-situ approach allows accurate analyses by avoiding possible mixing or averaging ages of different phases and can be applied to texturally complex veins, speleothems, cements, stromatolites, dolomite, lake sediment and more. A combined analysis approach, utilizing in-situ and traditional bulk techniques is needed for future developments, including finding the right reference materials, improving uncertainties, exploring in-situ U-series dating, and expending to new minerals and samples type. These future developments are promising thanks to a large and involving scientific community that can work together towards achieving these goals.