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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Fast offline data reduction of laser ablation MC-ICP-MS Sr isotope measurements: Via an interactive Excel-based spreadsheet 'SrDR'

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description

Strontium isotopes are applied to a wide range of scientific fields and to different types of sample materials, providing valuable information foremost about provenance and age, but also on diagenetic processes and mixing relationships between different Sr reservoirs. The development of in-situ analytical techniques, such as laser ablation ICP-MS, has improved our understanding of Sr isotope variability in several field of application, because of the possibility to discriminate small-scale changes and their spatial distribution. However, large outputs of Sr isotope data are produced by laser ablation MC-ICP-MS systems, which necessitate of multiple offline steps to correct and assess the data. This requires the availability of simple and user-friendly tools, easily manageable also by non-specialists. With this in mind, we developed SrDR, an Excel-based interactive data reduction spreadsheet (‘SrDR’, Sr-Data-Reduction) for the processing of Sr isotopes measured by LA-MC-ICP-MS. The SrDR spreadsheet is easily customizable (a) to meet user-specific analytical protocols, (b) for different instruments (i.e. Nu Plasma vs. Neptune), and (c) for diverse target materials (e.g. Rare Earth Elements enriched or depleted samples). We include also several examples relevant to low and high temperature geochemistry fields - a fossil tooth, a modern seashell, a speleothem sample and plagioclase crystals - to show how different sample materials are corrected for different interfering masses.