Martin Rittner

Martin Rittner
TOFWERK

PhD

About

60
Publications
65,956
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
2,826
Citations
Introduction
Field and structural geologist, become geochemist, become data analyst. I shoot with lasers and electron beams.
Additional affiliations
January 2018 - present
TOFWERK
Position
  • Researcher
March 2017 - present
University College London
Position
  • Research Associate
November 2012 - February 2017
University College London
Position
  • Research Assistant
Education
September 2007 - June 2011
September 1994 - June 2006
University of Innsbruck
Field of study
  • Geology

Publications

Publications (60)
Article
Full-text available
Understanding post‐depositional processes altering the layer sequence in ice cores is especially needed to avoid misinterpretation of the oldest and most highly thinned layers. The record of soluble and insoluble impurities represents an important part of the paleoclimate proxies in ice cores but is known to be affected through interaction with the...
Article
Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-TOFMS) is a fast, relatively high-spatial resolution method which allows to measure and visualize major, minor and trace elements in fine-grained samples. Thus, it is a promising tool for the investigation of high-pressure, high-temperature (HP-HT) reaction experimen...
Preprint
Full-text available
The Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary marks a major change in global climate and East Asian monsoon dynamic. However, the role of the global atmospheric dust-cycle over this time is unclear; in particular, whether, changes in the dust cycle influenced climate change, or resulted from it. Chinese loess records past dust-cycle history and the influences...
Article
This paper shows how heavy minerals and single-grain varietal studies can be conducted on silt (representing ~ 50% of world’s sediments) sediments to obtain quantitative data as efficiently as for sand-sized sediments. The analytical workflows include heavy mineral separation using a wide grain-size window (15-355 μ) analysed through integrated opt...
Article
Full-text available
This is a field trip guide that was written in the frame if the CBGA meeting in Salzburg in 2018. Even if the field trip was canceled, the field trip guide may be useful. The geology of the area around Lofer inspired the Bavarian geologist Felix Hahn to subdivide the Northern Calcareous Alps (NCA) tectonically (HAHN, 1912, 1913b). This subdivision...
Article
Capabilities of laser ablation coupled to a time of flight ICPMS (‘icpTOF’, Tofwerk) for direct isotopic analysis of U micrometric reference particles deposited on carbon disks were demonstrated. Thanks to the very high temporal resolution which allows quasi simultaneous measurement of all nuclides, the icpTOF is well-suited for the acquisition of...
Article
Full-text available
The Sichuan Basin and the Songpan-Ganze terrane, separated by the Longmen Shan fold-and-thrust belt (the eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau), are two main Triassic depositional centers, south of the Qinling-Dabie orogen. During the Middle – Late Triassic closure of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean the Sichuan Basin region, located at the western margin of...
Conference Paper
ABSTRACT High-pressure, high-temperature experiments typically produce small sample volumes with small grain sizes. Thus, high spatial resolution analytical techniques are required for their evaluation. High-resolution mapping techniques, e.g., by electron probe microanalysis (EPMA), are especially useful to evaluate reaction experiments with compo...
Article
Full-text available
Tl in the lorandite (TiAsS2) mine of Allchar (Majdan, FYR Macedonia) is transformed to ²⁰⁵Pb by cosmic ray reactions with muons and neutrinos. At depths of more than 300 m, muogenic production would be sufficiently low for the 4.3Ma old lorandite deposit to be used as a natural neutrino detector. Unfortunately, the Allchar deposit currently sits at...
Article
A new dimension has recently been added to provenance analysis by the rapid development of detrital‐geochronology techniques. The application of any dating method to sediments allows the definition of a unique age pattern of parent rocks, a “time structure” that represents an essential complement to the information on their lithological structure o...
Article
Full-text available
A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper.
Article
Full-text available
The subequatorial Angolan continental margin offers excellent conditions to test textbook theories on the composition of passive-margin sediments generated in different climatic and tectonic regimes. We use here comprehensive petrographic, heavy-mineral, geochemical and zircon-geochronology datasets on modern fluvial, beach, shelfal, and deep-marin...
Article
Full-text available
We used petrographic, heavy-mineral, and geochronological signatures of sand-sized grains to document an exceptional case of long-distance sediment transport dominated by eolian processes in a hyperarid climate. Feldspatho-quartzo-lithic orogenic detritus shed by the Anatolia Plateau and Zagros Mountains-including carbonate, chert, volcanic, metaba...
Article
Full-text available
The Chinese Loess Plateau, the world’s largest and oldest loess record, preserves evidence of Asia’s long-term dust source dynamics, but there is uncertainty over the source of the deposits. Recent single-grain detrital zircon U-Pb age analysis has progressed this issue, but debates remain about source changes, and the generation and interpretation...
Article
Full-text available
The permeability of shales is important, because it controls where oil and gas resources can migrate to and where in the Earth hydrocarbons are ultimately stored. Shales have a well-known anisotropic directional permeability that is inherited from the depositional layering of sedimentary laminations, where the highest permeability is measured paral...
Article
Full-text available
The first step in most geochronological studies is to extract dateable minerals from the host rock, which is time consuming, removes textural context, and increases the chance for sample cross-contamination. We here present a new method to rapidly perform in-situ analyses by coupling a fast Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) with Energy Dispersive...
Article
Full-text available
This study focuses on the causes, modalities and obstacles of sediment transfer in the longest cell of littoral sand drift documented on Earth so far. Sand derived from the Orange River is dragged by swell waves and persistent southerly winds to accumulate in four successive dunefields in coastal Namibia to Angola. All four dunefields are terminate...
Article
Full-text available
New detrital zircon ages confirm that the Neoproterozoic strata of the southeastern North China Craton (NCC) are mostly of early Tonian age, but that the Gouhou Formation, previously assigned to the Tonian, is Cambrian in age. A discordant hiatus of >150–300 myr occurs across the NCC, spanning most of the late Tonian, Cryogenian, Ediacaran and earl...
Article
Full-text available
Although it is not known when or where life on Earth began, some of the earliest habitable environments may have been submarine-hydrothermal vents. Here we report putative fossilised microorganisms at least 3770 and possibly 4290 million years old in ferruginous sedimentary rocks, interpreted as seafloor-hydrothermal vent-related precipitates, from...
Article
Although it is not known when or where life on Earth began, some of the earliest habitable environments may have been submarine-hydrothermal vents. Here we describe putative fossilized microorganisms that are at least 3,770 million and possibly 4,280 million years old in ferruginous sedimentary rocks, interpreted as seafloor-hydrothermal vent-relat...
Article
A pairwise in-situ (U-Th)/He dating method has been proposed for mitigating matrix-related bias in U and Th measurements using synthetic reference materials. This method requires a natural zircon reference material whose (U-Th)/He age should be homogeneous on the scale (~ 10–100 μm) to be used in such dating experiments. A newly characterized zirco...
Article
The Jurassic system is the major hydrocarbon source rock and of crucial importance for understanding the Mesozoic intra-continental tectonics in West China. This paper presents systematic detrital zircon geochronology of the Jurassic outcropping at the Dameigou locality in the northern Qaidam Basin, and reports ~1000 single-grain U-Pb zircon ages t...
Article
Full-text available
Marine sedimentary rocks drilled on the southeastern margin of the South Orkney microcontinent in Antarctica (Ocean Drilling Program Leg 113 Site 696) were deposited between ∼36.5 Ma to 33.6 Ma, across the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition. The recovered rocks contain abundant grains exhibiting mechanical features diagnostic of iceberg-rafted deb...
Poster
Full-text available
Abstract: Separation of mineral phases that are dateable by radiogenic isotopes is in most cases time-consuming and liable to bias. Here, we present case studies utilising QEMSCAN® automated mineralogy combined with laser ablation ICPMS, enabling higher sample throughput, faster analysis and minimal bias during sample preparation, while at the same...
Article
Full-text available
The Pamirs represent the indented westward continuation of the northern margin of the Tibetan plateau, dividing the Tarim and Tajik basins. Their evolution may be a key factor influencing aridification of the Asian interior, yet the tectonics of the Pamir Salient are poorly understood. We present a provenance study of the Aertashi section, a Paleog...
Article
Full-text available
Nature Communications 6: Article number: 8511 (2015); Published: 9 October 2015; Updated: 18 February 2016. The original version of this Article contained errors in the Supplementary Information files: Zircon U-Pb age results for sample 23, shown in Supplementary Fig. 3, are incorrect, and missing from Supplementary Data 1, while several identifica...
Article
Thrusting, folding and metamorphism of late Paleozoic to middle Mesozoic sedimentary rocks, together with high precision U–Pb zircon ages from Middle to Late Jurassic volcanic and granitic rocks, reveals evidence for a major deformation event in northwestern Hong Kong between 164 and 161 Ma. This episode can be linked with collision of an exotic mi...
Article
Full-text available
Sand migration in the vast Taklamakan desert within the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous region, PR China) is governed by two competing transport agents: wind and water, which work in diametrically opposed directions. Net aeolian transport is from northeast to south, while fluvial transport occurs from the south to the north and then west to...
Data
Full-text available
The original version of this Article contained errors in the Supplementary Information files: Zircon U-Pb age results for sample 23, shown in Supplementary Fig. 3, are incorrect, and missing from Supplementary Data 1, while several identification labels relating to Yellow River Lanzhou terraces samples are missing from Supplementary Data 2. Supplem...
Article
Full-text available
Marine accumulations of terrigenous sediment are widely assumed to accurately record climatic-and tectonic-controlled mountain denudation and play an important role in understanding late Cenozoic mountain uplift and global cooling. Underpinning this is the assumption that the majority of sediment eroded from hinterland orogenic belts is transported...
Article
Full-text available
Marine accumulations of terrigenous sediment are widely assumed to accurately record climatic- and tectonic-controlled mountain denudation and play an important role in understanding late Cenozoic mountain uplift and global cooling. Underpinning this is the assumption that the majority of sediment eroded from hinterland orogenic belts is transporte...
Article
It is well known that western Myanmar is underlain by a continental fragment, the West Burma Block, but there are arguments about its origin and the time of its arrival in SE Asia. This study presents the first petrological, XRD diffraction, heavy mineral and detrital zircon U-Pb age data from turbidite sandstones in the Chin Hills that were deposi...
Article
A new add-on package (LAICPMS) for the R language for statistical computing is presented, which greatly facilitates data reduction and visualisation (single tracks and 2D element maps) of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LAICPMS) data. The package determines many input parameters automatically and is easy to use. We pres...
Article
The Chinese Loess Plateau contains one of the most valuable Cenozoic climate archives on land. However, the origin of these sediments is highly controversial. Previous models suggest that the sediment was sourced from the regional deserts to the north and the west of the Loess Plateau. In contrast, a more recent proposal is that the sediment was tr...
Chapter
Full-text available
This study analyses and discusses well preserved examples of Late Jurassic structures in the Northern Calcareous Alps, located at the Loferer Alm, about 35 km southwest of Salzburg. A detailed sedimentary and structural study of the area was carried out for a better understanding of the local Late Jurassic evolution. The Grubhörndl and Schwarzenber...

Network

Cited By