Continued development and application of 40Ar/39Ar dating for archaeometric research

40Ar/39Ar测年法在考古研究中的持续开发和应用

• 批准号: 1322017
• 负责人: Alan Deino
• 金额: $ 19.6万
• 依托单位: Berkeley Geochronology Center
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-01 至 2018-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1322017&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Continued; development; application; 40Ar; 39Ar

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Alan Deino and Paul Renne will initiate a three-year effort to upgrade the 40Ar/39Ar dating facilities at the Berkeley Geochronology Center in Berkeley, California. The 40Ar/39Ar dating method has the broadest temporal range of applicability in archeological and paleoanthropological contexts, and is well established as a highly accurate and precise dating tool that has contributed widely to the study of hominid and hominoid evolution. The planned upgrades will ensure that the Archaeometric community has access to a laboratory exercising the best possible practices in this advanced and powerful dating technique, in order to attain the highest possible levels of precision, accuracy and throughput. The improvements will be in the areas of sample processing and extraction methods for removing argon from samples during analysis. Such advances will permit accurate analysis of difficult materials such as those that are low in potassium, very young, very small, or in the areas of mitigation of certain types of natural geological contamination, thus expanding the scope of problems that can be solved.In order to address these goals over the next three years, expenditures will be focused primarily in three areas: 1) Outfitting of a dedicated laboratory for 40Ar/39Ar sample preparation. The anticipated benefits to Archaeometry are in the area of clean and efficient processing of volume-limited or otherwise difficult samples in a controlled environment with minimal possibility of sample contamination, 2) Construction of a CO2 scanning laser system for better heating control for sample degassing, with the anticipated benefit of improved age resolution and greater accuracy in dating young, small, or low-K samples by enhancing sensitivity and uniformity in the heating process, and 3) NSF funding will also help BGC conduct routine maintenance and the purchase of consumables.Broader impacts of this study are anticipated in three areas: (1) Interdisciplinary stimulus. The research studies enabled by this grant are intrinsically interdisciplinary and foster improved interaction between geological, archaeological, and paleoanthropological scientists; (2) Public outreach. The archaeometric age data produced by BGC are frequently published in high-profile journals that are covered by lay news media, hence receiving broad public dissemination in newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and increasingly, the web; (3) Training early career scientists. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, many of whom will continue archaeometric research in the future, will receive direct training in the use of the dating facilities, poised to represent the next generation of 40Ar/39Ar geochronologists. Many other graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will receive archaeometric data in direct support of their field studies.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，博士。 Alan Deino 和 Paul Renne 将启动为期三年的工作，升级加利福尼亚州伯克利伯克利地质年代学中心的 40Ar/39Ar 测年设施。 40Ar/39Ar 测年方法在考古学和古人类学背景下具有最广泛的时间范围，并且被认为是一种高度准确和精确的测年工具，为原始人类和原始人类进化的研究做出了广泛贡献。计划中的升级将确保考古学界能够使用实验室，在这种先进而强大的测年技术中进行最佳实践，以达到尽可能高的精度、准确度和吞吐量水平。这些改进将集中在样品处理和分析过程中从样品中去除氩气的提取方法方面。这些进步将允许对困难材料进行准确分析，例如那些钾含量低、非常年轻、非常小的材料，或者在减轻某些类型的自然地质污染的领域，从而扩大了可以解决的问题的范围。为了在未来三年内实现这些目标，支出将主要集中在三个领域： 1) 配备用于 40Ar/39Ar 样品制备的专用实验室。考古学的预期好处在于在受控环境中清洁、高效地处理体积有限或其他困难的样品，样品污染的可能性最小，2) 构建 CO2 扫描激光系统，以更好地控制样品脱气的加热，通过提高加热过程的灵敏度和均匀性，可以提高年龄分辨率和提高年轻、小或低 K 样品测定的准确性，以及 3) NSF 资助还将帮助 BGC 进行日常维护和购买预计本研究将在三个领域产生更广泛的影响：（1）跨学科刺激。这笔资助所开展的研究本质上是跨学科的，促进了地质学、考古学和古人类学科学家之间更好的互动； (2) 公众宣传。 BGC 生成的考古年龄数据经常发表在普通新闻媒体报道的知名期刊上，因此在报纸、杂志、广播、电视以及越来越多的网络上得到广泛的公众传播； (3)培养早期职业科学家。研究生和博士后研究员（其中许多人将在未来继续考古研究）将接受有关使用测年设备的直接培训，准备代表下一代 40Ar/39Ar 地质年代学家。许多其他研究生和博士后研究员将收到考古数据，以直接支持他们的实地研究。