Rb-Sr analyses and age determinations of certain lepidolites, including an international interlaboratory comparison suite

Abstract
Rb, Sr and radiogenic 87 SR concentrations, and radioactivity "ages" have been determined by stable isotope dilution for lepidolite samples from 8 pegmatite occurrences. Five of the samples analyzed comprise an "intercomparison suite" ranging in age from 100 X 10 6 to 2600 X 10 6 years. Portions of these samples were sent by us to several other laboratories for analysis, as a test of the interlaboratory reproducibility of stable isotope dilution analysis. In this paper analytical data for this suite from 4 laboratories are compared. Interlaboratory reproducibility and intralaboratory reproducibility are essentially identical for the age determinations; it is apparent that age ratios for lepidolite can be measured routinely with analytical accuracy better than + or - 4% (standard deviation). Rb was determined with a precision of 1 to 2%, and Sr with a precision of 1 to 3% within individual laboratories; difference between results obtained at the several laboratories may be due in part to small differences in Rb and Sr standard solution calibrations and in part to sample inhomogeneities; the good interlaboratory agreement in age determinations favors the latter interpretation. A comparison of stable isotope dilution, optical spectrographic, and neutron activation Rb/Sr data for sets of independently collected and analyzed samples from 6 localities is also given. For each pegmatite, there is good agreement (a range of a few percent) in the ages determined by isotope dilution and neutron activation, although Rb concentrations have ranges of up to 30%. The study gives insight into the sources of error in the optical spectrographic technique and provides standards which may make possible the improvement of this method of analysis.