High-precision Sr and Nd isotope characterization of BHVO-2 reference material by thermal ionization mass spectrometry
José Manuel Fuenlabrada has recently published a research article in the international journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, showing the isotopic analyses of strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and neodymium (143Nd/144Nd), carried out from 2015 to the present, in the Geochronology Unit (CAI of Earth Sciences and Archaeometry- UCM) by using TIMS on the reference material BHVO-2 (USGS). This reference material corresponds to a basalt from the Kilauea volcano (Hawaii, USA) and is widely used by the scientific community both for the certification of the concentration of many major and trace elements, as well as for its isotopic analysis by multiple researchers.
In this case, 88 isotopic analyses of the 87Sr/86Sr isotopic ratio and 62 of the 143Nd/144Nd isotopic ratio are presented, using the TIMS Phoenix-IsotopX mass spectrometer of the Geochronology Unit. Likewise, the results obtained in this same period of time for the reference isotopic standards for the aforementioned elements, NBS 987 (Sr), LaJolla and JNdi-1 (Nd), are also presented. All of them were analysed at the same time as the reference material, giving an idea of the goodness of the analysis by comparison with published values.
This work aims to support the use of this reference material for the validation of analytical processes and the correlation of isotopic results between laboratories, thereby achieving a substantial improvement in the interpretation of isotopic results for geological, environmental and archaeological samples.
This work has been published as Open Access in accordance with the institutional policy of Open Access to the scientific and academic output of the UCM and within the transformative agreement signed with the CRUE and the Wiley publishing house.
Fuenlabrada, J.M. High-precision Sr and Nd isotope characterization of BHVO-2 reference material by thermal ionization mass spectrometry. Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom. 2023;37(21):e9632. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/rcm.9632
