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

在国家科学基金会的支持下，艾伦·迪诺博士和保罗·雷恩博士将开始一项为期三年的努力，升级位于加州伯克利的伯克利地质年代学中心的40 Ar/39 Ar测年设备。40 Ar/39 Ar定年法在考古学和古人类学背景下具有最广泛的时间适用范围，并且被公认为高度准确和精确的定年工具，广泛地促进了人类和类人猿进化的研究。计划中的升级将确保考古界有机会使用一个实验室，在这一先进和强大的测年技术中尽可能采用最佳做法，以达到尽可能高的精度、准确度和吞吐量。改进将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。这些进展将使人们能够准确地分析困难的物质，例如钾含量低、非常年轻、非常小的物质，或在减轻某些类型的自然地质污染的地区，从而扩大可以解决的问题的范围，为了在今后三年实现这些目标，支出将主要集中在三个领域：1）配备40 Ar/39 Ar样品制备专用实验室。对考古学的预期好处是在受控环境中清洁和有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）建造一个二氧化碳扫描激光系统，以更好地控制样品脱气的加热，预期好处是提高年龄分辨率，通过提高加热过程中的灵敏度和均匀性，获得低K或低K样品; 3）NSF的资助也将帮助BGC进行日常维护和耗材的购买。该补助金所支持的研究本质上是跨学科的，并促进了地质学，考古学和古人类学科学家之间的互动;（2）公共宣传。BGC制作的考古年代数据经常发表在知名期刊上，这些期刊由非专业新闻媒体报道，因此在报纸，杂志，广播，电视和越来越多的网络上得到广泛的公众传播;（3）培训早期职业科学家。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，将接受直接培训，使用测年设施，准备代表下一代的40 Ar/39 Ar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，直接支持他们的实地研究。

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.