I use the thermal history of rocks and minerals (in other words, their changing temperature through time) to learn about Earth's history. Thermochronology is the study of a rock's time-temperature history.
Thermochronology is a geochemical method. We measure the abundance of elements that experience natural radioactive decay in individual mineral crystals and use that abundance as a clock to tell time in geologic materials. Many products of radioactive decay (atoms like He or crystal damage like fission tracks) are temperature sensitive. They accumulate in the mineral (or not!) as a function of the temperature and the physical/chemical properties of the mineral crystal. |
Rocks change temperature in response to many processes and events.
For example, rocks cool off as they get close to the Earth's surface, so rock thermal histories can document
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