Annealing behavior of alpha recoil tracks in phlogopite

In this study we present and interpret a new experimental data set documenting thermal annealing of alpha recoil tracks (ARTs) in phlogopite. Through improvements in experimental technique, difficulties in obtaining useable data from material with an uneven distribution of U and Th were overcome. The resulting annealing pattern was well organized on an Arrhenius plot, allowing construction of a simple, 3-parameter annealing model of parallel contours of constant annealing with a linear progression. Our data and model indicate that phlogopite ARTs anneal at very low temperatures on geological time scales. At the million-year time scale, full annealing requires a temperature of only 33 °C, and we infer closure temperatures from 26–37 °C for cooling rates of 10–100 °C/m.y. Phlogopite ART analysis is thus likely to be primarily useful in relatively young (<1 Ma) terrains featuring either recent volcanism or recent, fast exhumation. In such situations, however, it may provide unique information on the timing of the final stages of unroofing. Comparison of our results with previous studies on ART and fission-track annealing in phlogopite and biotite indicates that these two types of radiation damage anneal at disparate time and temperature conditions in biotite-series micas.