| Abstract |
SIMS is an extremely versatile tool in accessory mineral geochronology, with minimal sample consumption, offering in situ analysis in a textural context and the combination of age and other structural, chemical, or isotopic information at the μm scale. We review fundamental aspects of the sputtering source as relevant to the analysis of U–Th–Pb isotopes and the different instrumentation types that are operated in multi-user facilities serving the Earth Sciences community. This review also guides through the essential steps of sample preparation, instrument tuning, and calibration, but we emphasize that this is no substitute for close communication between users and SIMS practitioners. The second part of this chapter reviews applications which showcase the strengths of SIMS, with subjective foci on (1) ore geology and the often complex materials encountered there, (2) dating of microbaddeleyite in mafic rocks that due to their minute grain sizes are difficult to extract and analyze by other methods, and (3) uranium-series accessory mineral geochronology of young magmatic systems to constrain realistic crystallization and crystal residence time scales. |
, Allen Kennedy 
