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The Guizhou Plateau represents a geomorphic transition between the Tibetan Plateau and the Yangtze River Plain. It likely formed in response to the propagation of surface uplift in southeastern Tibet during India-Eurasia continental collision. However, the uplift history of the region is unclear largely due to a lack of datable material. The bedrock geology is dominated by carbonate rocks, which contains numerous multi-level caves in the main river valleys that are linked to the river incision history. Cosmogenic 26Al and 10Be burial dating of sediments in caves and river terraces from the northwestern and southern plateau reveals the fluvial chronology and provides the first direct determination of long-term river incision rates. The caves and terraces on the Liuchong River in NW Guizhou yield burial ages of between 0.41 ± 0.12 Ma and 2.85 ± 0.21 Ma, indicating an average incision rate of 57 ± 3 m/Ma. Four level caves at Libo in southern Guizhou yield burial ages of between 0.56 ± 0.16 Ma and 3.54 (+0.25/-0.22) Ma, indicating slightly slower incision rate (47 ± 5 m/Ma). These new results imply that the high elevation of the Guizhou Plateau had developed before the Late Pliocene, and that surface uplift during the Late Cenozoic was largely uniform across the region.

Cosmogenic nuclide burial dating provides an alternative method for sediment dating, and the combination of radionuclide 10Be with noble gas isotope 21Ne would theoretically extend the burial dating range up to around 15 Ma ago, which endows 10Be/21Ne pair with huge potential in middle-Miocene sediment dating. Especially in the magnetostratigraphic studies of the Cenozoic sedimentary strata, the 10Be/21Ne pair could be expected to provide absolute age marker when the well-dated volcanic ash layer or bedded mammalian fossils are absent. However, the validity and accuracy of the 10Be/21Ne burial dating when used close to its limiting middle Miocene ages has not been assessed in case study. Here, we show our dating results of the sedimentary stratum samples, which deposited at the same bedding of the Vertebrate fossils of Platybelodon tongxinensis that offer an independent age constraint between 12 and 15 Ma. The 10Be/21Ne analyses yielded a mean burial age of 13.25 ± 0.33 Ma, which agrees well with the paleontological proxy, and the MSWD value of 0.66 indicates the good agreement of the apparent dispersion of six aliquots data with their individual measurement errors. In view of the extended applicable dating range of 10Be/21Ne pair, it is promising in providing absolute age marker or valuable chronological information for a variety of fields in Earth science and beyond.

Cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating of ancient shoreline terraces of the Quillagua-Llamara Soledad Lake in the central Atacama Desert of northern Chile provides new insights in the paleohydrology of the driest desert on Earth. The lake developed in a paleo-endorheic drainage system in the Central Depression prior to draining into the Pacific due to incision of the Rio Loa canyon. The durations of lake stages were sufficiently long to form wave-erosion induced shoreline terraces on the wind-exposed slopes of former islands. Successively younger shoreline levels are preserved over an elevation range of 250 m due to progressive uplift of the islands coeval with the lake stages. Cosmogenic 10Be- and 21Ne-derived exposure ages of the shorelines reveals that the hyperarid conditions in the Rio Loa catchment were interspersed by several pluvial stages during the Pliocene and Pleistocene, which generated a large and persistent lake in the Quillagua-Llamara basin. The exposure ages of the final lake stage provide the maximum age for the incision of the Rio Loa canyon (274 ± 74 ka) and the subsequent breaching of the Coastal Cordillera.

This study reports an inter-laboratory comparison of the 3He and 4He concentrations measured in the pyroxene material CRONUS-P. This forms part of the CRONUS-Earth and CRONUS-EU programs, which also produced a series of natural reference materials for in situ produced ^(26)Al, ^(10)Be, ^(14)C, ^(21)Ne and ^(36)Cl. Six laboratories (GFZ Potsdam, Caltech Pasadena, CRPG Nancy, SUERC Glasgow, BGC Berkeley, Lamont New York) participated in this intercomparison experiment, analyzing between 5 and 22 aliquots each. Intra-laboratory results yield ^3He concentrations that are consistent with the reported analytical uncertainties, which suggests that ^3He is homogeneous within CRONUS-P. The inter-laboratory dataset (66 determinations from the 6 different labs) is characterized by a global weighted mean of (5.02 ± 0.12) × 10^9 at g^(−1) with an overdispersion of 5.6% (2σ). ^4He is characterized by a larger variability than ^3He, and by an inter-lab global weighted mean of (3.60 ± 0.18) × 10^(13) at g^(−1) (2σ) with an overdispersion of 10.4% (2σ). There are, however, some systematic differences between the six laboratories. More precisely, 2 laboratories obtained mean ^3He concentrations that are about 6% higher than the clustered other 4 laboratories. This systematic bias is larger than the analytical uncertainty and not related to the CRONUS-P material (see Schaefer et al., 2015). Reasons for these inter-laboratory offsets are difficult to identify but are discussed below. To improve the precision of cosmogenic ^3He dating, we suggest that future studies presenting cosmogenic 3He results also report the ^3He concentration measured in the CRONUS-P material in the lab(s) used in a given study.

International audience; We performed an interlaboratory comparison study with the aim to determine the accuracy of cosmogenic 21Ne measurements in quartz. CREU-1 is a natural quartz standard prepared from amalgamated vein clasts which were crushed, thoroughly mixed, and sieved into 125–250 μm and 250–500 μm size fractions. 50 aliquots of CREU-1 were analyzed by five laboratories employing six different noble gas mass spectrometers. The released gas contained a mixture of 16–30% atmospheric and 70–84% non-atmospheric (predominantly cosmogenic) 21Ne, defining a linear array on the 22Ne/20Ne-21Ne/20Ne three isotope diagram with a slope of 1.108 ± 0.014. The internal reproducibility of the measurements is in good agreement with the formal analytical precision for all participating labs. The external reproducibility of the 21Ne concentrations between labs, however, is significantly overdispersed with respect to the reported analytical precision. We report an average reference concentration for CREU-1 of 348 ± 10 × 106 at [21Ne]/g[SiO2], and suggest that the 7.1% (2σ) overdispersion of our measurements may be representative of the current accuracy of cosmogenic 21Ne in quartz. CREU-1 was tied to CRONUS-A, which is a second reference material prepared from a sample of Antarctic sandstone. We propose a reference value of 320 ± 11 × 106 at/g for CRONUS-A. The CREU-1 and CRONUS-A intercalibration materials may be used to improve the consistency of cosmogenic 21Ne to the level of the analytical precision.

The chronology and origin of volcanism of Ascension Island, South Atlantic Ocean, is poorly resolved. Here we use in situ produced cosmogenic 3He in olivine and pyroxene phenocrysts from well-preserved lava flows to date the main sub-aerial basalt volcanism on the island. Etching olivine separates in HF/HNO3 appears to remove a significant proportion of the implanted radiogenic 4He contribution. Average exposure ages of each flow corrected for radiogenic He range from 328 ka to 186 ka and are used to refine the chronology and stratigraphy of the island. Magmatic 3He/4He ratios derived from in vacuo crushing are in the range of 6.3–7.3 RA. This range is lower than the neighbouring Mid-Atlantic Ridge segment (6–8°S) but slightly higher than measured in regional ocean islands of St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha and Gough. Combining these data with new trace element data and published radiogenic isotope ratios it appears that the Ascension Island magmatism is a mix of HIMU mantle material, typified by basalts from St. Helena, and depleted MORB-source mantle.

We propose guidelines for the reporting of in situ cosmogenic nuclide data for exposure age and erosion rate determinations. This is motivated by the need to maintain the utility of such data in the future, and to delineate best scientific practice. These guidelines will allow published exposure ages and erosion rates to be recalculated with confidence by others in the future, if, as is likely, procedures to calculate cosmogenic nuclide production rates are modified in the meantime.

In-situ cosmogenic 3He exposure ages of pyroxene phenocrysts from basalts from the Upper Neostromboli formation in southwest Stromboli date its eruption at 7.0 ± 0.3 ka (1σ, n = 3, Ginostra site) and 6.8 ± 0.2 ka (1σ, n = 10, Timpone del Fuoco site) respectively. Correlation of our new data to previous K/Ar and palaeomagnetic ages from the northwestern Neostromboli phase suggests that it erupted within a confined period between roughly 6 and 14 ka. The low uncertainty on the 3Hecos ages as well as on individual exposure ages (4.4–8.7%) demonstrates that 3Hecos exposure dating is a viable tool for dating Holocene basalt lavas. The ages compare favourably to uncertainties obtained for radiocarbon dating of similar rocks.

We have used cosmogenic 3He to date pre- and post-collapse lava flows from southwestern Fogo, Cape Verdes, in order to date rift zone magmatic reorganisation following the lateral collapse of the flank of the Monte Amarelo volcano. The post-collapse flows have exposure ages ranging from 62 to 11 ka. The analysis of multiple flow tops on each lava flows, often at different elevations, provides an internal check for age consistency and the exposures ages conform with stratigraphic level. The exposure ages suggest that volcanic activity along the western branch of the triple-armed rift zone was more or less continuous from before 62 ka to approximately 11 ka. The absence of magmatic activity for the last 11 kyr reflects a structural reconfiguration of the volcano and may be related to renewed flank instability. This volcanic hiatus is similar in duration to that observed in the Canary Islands. Replicate 3He exposure ages of a pre-collapse flow (123.0 ± 5.2 ka) brackets the time of the Monte Amarelo collapse between 62 ka and 123 ka. Reproducible cosmogenic 3He exposure ages of less than 123 ka from flows away from major erosion features demonstrates that the technique is a viable alternative to the radiocarbon, K/Ar and 40Ar/39Ar chronometers for dating recent volcanism in arid climate zones.