Since 1958, the authors have planned the K-A dating of rocks and minerals, and been engaged in preparation of apparatus. By the installation of multiplier to the mass spectrometer at the end of last year, the accuracies of measurement have been remarkably increased. The mass spectrometer can be kept at high vacuum of 10-9mm Hg and the specimen belonging to such a young age as late Cenozoic can be measured under static operation. In this paper, the experiments which were carried out in our laboratory and the workings of the mass spectrometer are briefly described.
In order to ascertain the dependability of the machine through the whole operation such as argon extraction, spike argon mixing and argon isotope measurement by mass spectrometer, repeated measurements on the same specimen were done, and the reproducibility was examined. As a result, it was confirmed that the reproducibility could be obtained within the maximum errors of ±5%.
Age measurements on different minerals such as biotite and K-feldspar from the same rock were also attempted. From two specimens, 10% younger K-feldspar ages than biotite ones were measured, and from one specimen almost the same age was obtained, while from another specimen, younger biotite age than that of K-feldspar was dated due to the thermal metamor-phism at the later stage.
Regarding to granitic rocks, samples from following districts such as Ichinohe, Kitakami Mountains, Abukuma Mountains, Backbone District of Northeastern Japan, Ashio Mountainblock, Kofu Basin and Outer Zone of Southwestern Japan were dated. The most ages of the specimens from
these districts belong to Cretaceous, but the samples from Hinokami-yama, Kitakami Mountains indicated the Triassic age, and the specimens from Kofu Basin the Pliocene.
For the Cenozoic volcanics of which the stratigraphic horizons had been established, K-A datings were also done, and a high degree of consistency to geologic evidences has been found.
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