URANIUM-LEAD GEOCHRONOLOGY BY TITANITE, ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS

Abstract

The uranium-lead isotope method is used to date titanites from granitoids of the Ros'-Tikych megablock of the Ukrainian Shield (middle reaches of the Ros' river, below Bila Tserkva). Their isotopic behavior is analyzed along with published results, of other titanites found in crystalline rocks of the Ukrainian Shield. Titanites of granitoids from the Ros'-Tikych megablock contain impurity lead and this leads to an abnormal isotopic composition. The overestimation in age values calculated by methods that do not require correction for ordinary lead (method normalized, agreed differences and the slope of the regression line on the graph in the coordinates 207Pb/204Pb — 206Pb/204Pb) is up to several tens of millions of years, compared to, calculated on the model of Ahrens-Wetherill. The influence of impurity lead of anomalous isotopic composition on the distortion of the calculated values of the isotopic age, in the ratio 207Pb/206Pb is modeled. It was found that the entry into the isotope system, 2.0 billion years old, of ordinary lead with a modern isotopic composition, even with a ratio of impurity lead to radiogenic lead 1:1, will reduce the age by 207Pb/206Pb by only 4 million years. Significantly greater distortions (overestimations) of the isotopic ages is will be caused by impurity lead, in the isotopic composition of which there is an ancient (for example, 500 million older than the age of crystallization of titanite) radiogenic lead. Thus, when the ratio share of impurity lead is 20%, the overestimation of age is more than 50 million years, and it reaches 235 million years forat a ratio of 1:1 (50%). The numerical values of the isotopic age will be even more inflated at the ratio of 207Pb/206Pb in cases when impurity lead contains radiogenic lead of older age, even with a smaller share of it in the composition of impurity lead.