New and updated edition of a popular textbook on the geological applications of radiogenic isotopes.

An accessible overview of radiogenic isotopes, dataset evaluation and real-world applications for advanced undergraduate students and industry professionals.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to radiogenic and stable isotope geochemistry. Beginning with a brief overview of nuclear physics and nuclear origins, it then reviews radioactive decay schemes and their use in geochronology. A following chapter covers the closely related techniques such as fission-track and carbon-14 dating. Subsequent chapters cover nucleosynthetic anomalies in meteorites and early solar system chronology and the use of radiogenic isotopes in understanding the evolution of the Earth’s mantle, crust, and oceans. Attention then turns to stable isotopes and after reviewing the basic principles involved, the book explores their use in topics as diverse as mantle evolution, archeology and paleontology, ore formation, and, particularly, paleoclimatology. A following chapter explores recent developments including unconventional stable isotopes, mass-independent fractionation, and isotopic ‘clumping’. The final chapter reviews the isotopic variation in the noble gases, which result from both radioactive decay and chemical fractionations.

This textbook is a complete rewrite, and expansion of Hugh Rollinson's highly successful 1993 book Using Geochemical Data: Evaluation, Presentation, Interpretation. Rollinson and Pease's new book covers the explosion in geochemical thinking over the past three decades, as new instruments and techniques have come online. It provides a comprehensive overview of how modern geochemical data are used in the understanding of geological and petrological processes. It covers major element, trace element, and radiogenic and stable isotope geochemistry. It explains the potential of many geochemical techniques, provides examples of their application, and emphasizes how to interpret the resulting data. Additional topics covered include the critical statistical analysis of geochemical data, current geochemical techniques, effective display of geochemical data, and the application of data in problem solving and identifying petrogenetic processes within a geological context. It will be invaluable for all graduate students, researchers, and professionals using geochemical techniques.

A comprehensive introductory textbook to isotope techniques for undergraduate and graduate courses.

This book takes the reader through the complete weathering cycle, from the continents to the oceans, from the perspective of modern radiogenic isotope geochemistry. Topics include surface weathering, fluvial processes, environmental pollution, oceanography and paleoceanography, sedimentary mineral diagenesis and radiometric dating, thus bridging the gap between processes acting on the Earth today and the geological record. Extensive use is made of carefully selected case studies, both pioneering and state-of-the-art. This book enables the reader to critically assess previous work from the literature as well as encouraging already established researchers to apply the most modern isotopic approaches to their particular field of study.