Wen Zhang

China University of Geosciences · State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources

This study presents the first high precision method to analyze stable Zr isotope ratios in zircons using laser ablation multiple collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS). Interference problems for...

Presently, laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) is the main micro-analysis technique for isotopic ratios. It provides high precision and spatially resolved isotopic information in solid samples for earth science research. Data reduction of LA-MC-ICP-MS is inherently challenging owing to the seve...

Iron‐titanium oxides such as ilmenite (FeTiO 3 ), titanite (CaTiSiO 5 ) and perovskite (CaTiO 3 ) are the common Ti‐rich mineral phases crystallised during magmatic and metamorphic processes on Earth. Depending on magma types or conditions of phase equilibria, formation of these Ti‐rich minerals can result in Ti isotopic fractionation in the range...

Rationale: Laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) has become a powerful technique for in situ Cu isotopic analysis in natural geological samples. Cu isotopic compositions in natural chalcopyrites have been used to reveal aspects of the mineralization processes directly. However, internationally o...

Mid‐ocean ridge basalts (MORBs) can record heterogeneity of the upper mantle. Early crystallized minerals and their melt inclusions commonly record greater isotopic variability than whole‐rocks and are powerful tools to investigate the mantle source. In this study, we develop a new in situ Pb analytical protocol for Pb‐poor materials (sub‐ppm level...

In situ U‐Pb geochronology and hafnium, oxygen and zirconium isotope measurements in zircons using laser ablation‐inductively coupled plasma‐mass spectrometry (LA‐ICP‐MS) and ion microprobe techniques can provide essential isotopic data to constrain geological evolutionary histories. Developing reliable zircon reference materials is the cornerstone...

The lunar basalt samples returned by the Chang’e-5 mission erupted about 2.0 billion years ago during the late period of the Moon’s secular cooling. The conditions of mantle melting in the source region and the migration of magma through the thick lithosphere that led to this relatively late lunar volcanism remain open questions. Here we combine qu...

Deep eutectic solvents (DES) have demonstrated their ability to facilitate skin penetrability of rigid nanoparticles (NPs). Here, we reported a feasible and simple transdermal delivery strategy using mesoporous silica nanoparticles impregnated in DES hydrogels for topical management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). To achieve this goal, nanoceria was...

Complete sample digestion is a prerequisite to achieve accurate and precise results of elemental concentrations and isotopic compositions in Ti-bearing minerals of interest, such as refractory rutile. In this study,...

Silver (Ag) is a trace metal element in geological rocks and accurate determination of its abundance is very challenging given significant oxide and hydroxide interferences from Zr, Nb, Mo, and...

Stable zirconium (Zr) isotope of magmatic zircons is a promising new tracer to understand magma differentiation in the continental crust. However, magmatic processes controlling zircon Zr isotopic variations remain poorly constrained. Here we present high-spatial-resolution in-situ methods on magmatic zircons for U-Pb age, trace elements, Hf isotop...

Zirconium, as a high field strength element, has been widely used to trace the differentiation of terrestrial planets. It is also a major constituent in zircon, an important accessory mineral providing constraints on the history of the Earth. Recently, stable Zr isotopes have shown potential in tracing magma differentiation. To fuel the application...

The lack of analytical techniques for halogens in geological materials is mainly due to the loss of analytes in sample preparation. This study describes a rapid bulk rock digestion method (NH4F digestion) for determination of the abundances of Cl, Br and I in geological materials by SF‐ICP‐MS. During high temperature (200–240 °C) digestion, NH3 rel...

Plagioclase crystallization is a common process for evolving mafic magmas. Theoretical calculation predicts limited Ca isotopic fractionation of plagioclase from parental magmas (Δ44/40Ca < 0.1 ‰), while natural samples display variable Ca isotopic variation between plagioclase and co-existing matrix (from +0.1 to −1.4‰), pointing to the complexity...

In this study, a rapid method for the quantification of sulfur mass fractions in geological materials using high‐resolution sector field inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (SF‐ICP‐MS ) was developed. The effects of HNO3, Lefort, aqua regia, and HCl on the recoveries of sulfur in three different geological samples were evaluated. It was fo...

Lunar soil is a fine mixture of local rocks and exotic components. The bulk-rock chemical composition of the newly returned Chang’E-5 (CE-5) lunar soil was studied to understand its chemical homogeneity, exotic additions, and origin of landing site basalts. Concentrations of 48 major and trace elements, including many low-concentration volatile and...

Strontium isotope composition is a powerful proxy to track the source and evolution of a range of geological processes in magmatic, sedimentary and metamorphic environments. Owing to the mobility of...

Lunar mare basalts provide a probe to study the magmatic and thermal evolution of the Moon. The Chang'e-5 (CE-5) mission returned samples from a young and hitherto unsampled mare terrain, providing fresh opportunities to understand lunar volcanic history. A detailed petrologic survey was conducted in this study on basalt fragments and glasses from...

Stable Zr isotopes have shown great potential in tracing magma differentiation. However, it remains unclear if different magmatic systems have similar Zr isotopic evolution patterns. Here we report high-precision Zr isotopic compositions of the well-defined Shidao alkaline complex (SAC), eastern China, which show small but important differences fro...

This work evaluates the use of femtosecond laser ablation multiple collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (fs-LA-MC-ICP-MS) for Zr isotopic analysis in zircons. The mass fractionation caused by instrumental mass discrimination was corrected by a combination of internal correction using Sr as an internal standard (coming from a NIST...

Transdermal delivery of solid nanoparticles remains a big problem. Microneedle administration and subcutaneous injection are the only two feasible approaches. Here, we developed a noninvasive strategy for the transdermal delivery of mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) using deep eutectic solvent (DES) from amino acid (AA) and citric acid (CA), w...

Green-core clinopyroxene (GCPX) widely occurs in diverse magmas and various tectonic settings. Due to its special textual and compositional zonation, it is usually considered as solid evidence for involvement of exotic felsic melt and some unique geological processes (e.g., magma mixing, mantle metasomatism and recycling of foundered lower continen...

This study reports a method for in situ determination of stable carbon (δ ¹³ C ‰) isotope compositions for calcite, dolomite, magnesite and siderite by femtosecond laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma...

Microanalysis of Fe and S isotopes in sulfides by laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) has been used as an important tool to identify the material sources...

The Fe isotopes of bulk Fe sulfides have become useful tracers for understanding geochemical conditions and processes ubiquitously involving Fe during both biological and non-biological processes under various conditions. However,...

In this study, we present a new high-precision method to analyze Ba isotope ratios in barite samples by laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS). Barite international standard...

Rare earth elements (REEs) in porewater can be useful proxies in the studies of marine geochemistry. The main challenges for the determination of REEs in porewater samples from marine sediments...

Knowledge of the elemental composition of geological samples is of high significance to research in Earth science. For whole‐rock elemental determination, complete sample digestion is essential to obtain bias‐free measurement results. In recent years, NH4HF2 digestion has been proposed for geological sample dissolution, however this requires 3 h of...

We proposed a new laser analytical mode, which used the high-frequency laser ablation to deliberately obtain the peak-shape signal profile, combined with the linear regression calibration (LRC) method to calculate elemental or isotopic ratios. In order to access the performance of the new laser analytical mode for the application in the field of ea...

We present a detailed characterization of Tanz zircon megacrysts for the microbeam determination of U-Pb ages, Zr isotopes, Hf isotopes, O isotopes and trace element mass fractions. This batch of dark brown zircon megacrysts from Tanzania contains 269 ± 103 μg g-1 U (Th/U ~ 0.154), and its total weight is 9.06 kg. The largest Tanz zircon megacryst...

Bastnäsite is widespread in alkali granite, carbonatite and REE ore deposits. The U-Th-Pb ages of bastnäsite can constrain the mineralization age. Currently, the lack of suitable in situ analysis reference material is the major obstacle of bastnäsite U-Th-Pb geochronology. In this study, the matrix effects of U-Pb and Th-Pb age determination in bas...

High precise and accurate measurements of Fe isotope ratios for fourteen reference materials from the USGS, MPI-DING and CGSG were successfully carried out using a developed analytical technique by fs...

A simple method for immobilizing powder samples was proposed to prepare calibration standards for the analyses of bulk elemental compositions of solid samples by LA-ICP-MS. Upon mixing with epoxy resin, the multielement doped powder was transformed into a stable and mechanically resistant target. Using this method, a sulfide standard, RPSS (resin p...

The accurate calibration of Li isotope ratio analysis was implemented by a simple and easy-to-operate sample-standard bracketing (SSB) calibration method using nanosecond laser ablation multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ns-LA-MC-ICP-MS). The method requires stable instrumental conditions to ensure similar or same mass bi...

High analytical sensitivity and minimized spectral interference are prerequisites for precise and accurate analysis of ultra-trace REEs (Rare Earth Elements) in geological samples (e.g., carbonates and peridotites). In this study, we designed a new heating-condensing system for the direct determination of ultra-trace REEs in carbonates and peridoti...

Clinopyroxene is a major host mineral for lithophile elements in the mantle lithosphere, and therefore, its origin is vital for constraints on mantle evolution and melt generation. In situ Sr isotopic measurement of clinopyroxene has been available since the recent development of laser ablation multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectro...

Significance Zircon, a common accessory mineral in crustal rocks, records plentiful and critical information on the Earth’s history. The isotopes of its major component, Zr, could be another powerful but unexplored tracer. We apply high-precision, high–spatial-resolution, in situ laser ablation Zr isotope measurements of magmatic zircons in contine...

Similar to the U‐Pb system, the 232Th‐208Pb decay scheme is also widely utilised in geochronology of Th‐rich accessory minerals. The matrix‐dependent systemic deviations observed between different accessory minerals and the paucity of well‐characterised reference materials for some minerals of interest (e.g., xenotime, allanite) are the major obsta...

We report stable Zr isotope compositions of four common natural zircon grains: Penglai, 91500, GJ-1 and Mud Tank, and 22 whole rocks reference materials which include fifteen magmatic rocks, one metamorphic rock, six sediments or sedimentary rocks. In addition, the isotopic calibration of the three Zr standard solutions used in different publicatio...

Reference materials (RMs) are the foundation in isotopic analysis, and the assignment of reference values of isotope ratios in RMs is a complex process. In this study, we established new isotopic reference values and its uncertainties for the Sr, Nd, Hf and Pb isotope ratios in 18 commonly used pure materials and rock RMs, and for Hf and O isotope...

Reference materials (RMs) are the foundation in isotopic analysis, and the assignment of reference values of isotope ratios in RMs is a complex process. In this study, we established new isotopic reference values and its uncertainties for the Sr, Nd, Hf and Pb isotope ratios in 18 commonly used pure materials and rock RMs, and for Hf and O isotope...

MC-ICP-MS has become one of the most powerful analytical methods for Si isotopes in bulk liquid and solid samples in the past decade. Laser ablation provides direct sampling of solid samples, avoiding laborious chemical digestion procedures. As for powder bulk samples, the preparation of stable and homogeneous targets prior to measurements, and str...

The isotope dilution (ID) method, owing to its high precision, is extensively used for the determination of element mass fractions in a wide range of natural samples. One of the prerequisites of the ID method is knowledge of the isotopic composition of an enriched spike, which is often challenging to accurately determine. In this study, we employ a...

The Pb isotopic compositions of granulite xenoliths are crucial to constrain the formation and evolution of the lower continental crust (LCC) and are potentially the key to resolve the first Pb paradox of the Earth. However, it remains unclear how host magma infiltration affects the Pb isotopic compositions of LCC xenoliths and how different this e...

This paper proposes firstly using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) for direct multi-element analysis of wine samples without any pretreatment process. As a micro-sample consumption system, this method not only avoids the risk of clogging by carbon deposits but also greatly reduces the matrix effects based on th...

Accurate elemental analysis of alloy steels is a prerequisite for providing high-quality product assurance. This study investigates the quantification capabilities of three laser systems: 257-nm femtosecond (300 fs), 213-nm Nd:YAG (3 ns), and 193-nm ArF* excimer (15 ns) lasers coupled with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry for the determ...

A new analytical method for the accurate and precise determination of stable zirconium isotope ratios in geological materials by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) is presented. Isobaric interferences from Mo were largely eliminated during filament heating and further reduced by the off-line Mo interference correction. This methodology all...

The genesis of Earth’s largest rare earth element (REE) deposit, Bayan Obo (China), has been intensely debated, in particular whether the host dolomite marble is of sedimentary or igneous origin. The protracted (Mesoproterozoic to Paleozoic) and intricate (magmatic to metasomatic) geological processes complicate geochemical interpretations. In this...

A new, simple and efficient separation method to isolate Mo from complex geological sample matrices for high precision Mo isotope ratio measurements is described. The proposed separation method benefits from the high selectivity and high capacity of the TRU resin, which affords a straightforward separation of Mo from complex sample matrices and ach...

Plagioclase ultraphyric basalts (PUBs) with up to 40% millimeter-sized plagioclase crystals, were sampled from the Mount Jourdanne volcanic massif (~64° E) in the Southwest Indian Ridge. The geochemistry of the host glass, the glassy melt inclusions and their host plagioclase macrocrysts (An60-69) are used to reveal the mantle heterogeneity and to...

Understanding the processes of tectonic erosion and crustal relamination during continental collision has important implications for the growth and differentiation of the continental crust. The discrepancy in isotopic compositions between the pre- and syn-collision magmatic rocks from the Gangdese belt in south Tibet provides an opportunity for stu...

Chlorine, bromine and iodine play very important roles in tracing geological and environmental processes due to their unique properties. Because of the difficulty and complexity of the conventional halogen detection methods, accurate and reliable data regarding halogens have been rarely reported, especially for low content geological materials. In...

As the main rock-forming mineral, plagioclase is an effective tool for studying petrogenesis, magma evolution and magma mixing. The cathodoluminescence image, electron probe micro-analysis and LA-ICP-MS composition analysis were carried out for the plagioclase from the granodiorite, monzogranite, diorite dykes and mafic Microgranular enclaves (MMEs...

Wolframite series often occur in tungsten deposits and other hydrothermal ore deposits. The relatively high U and low common Pb in wolframite has shown potential for U-Pb dating. In this study, we present the first laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) U–Pb geochronological analysis of wolframite samples. The lack...

This study presents a highly precise and accurate Ca isotope analysis method using laser ablation multiple collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICP-MS) in calcium carbonates and calcium phosphates. High-sensitivity cones and nitrogen gas were used to improve the performance of the LA-MC-ICP-MS. The experiment results show t...

To overcome the major shortcomings in conventional ICP-MS analysis with sample introduction by nebulization, a new solution sampling method was developed using laser ablation (LA). With this sampling method, water-related interferences were reduced by 1-2 orders of magnitude, the effects of which are similar to those obtained in membrane desolvatio...