Measurements of iridium and the meteoric impact hypothesis at cretaceous end

Both instrumental and radiochemical neutron activation analysis methods were developed for trace-element determination, such as iridium and gold, for application in cosmochemistry. The magnitude of the determined concentrations is in the range of parts per billion. In the instrumental method 1.5 grams of sample were submitted to irradiation by 1013 thermal neutrons.cm-2.s-1 during 32 hours. The gamma spectrometry is carried out with 10 to 12 hours counting time after 40 days of decay. In the radiochemical analysis a method of radiochemical separation of noble metals based on tellurium coprecipitation is implanted for iridium and gold determinations. As an application of the instrumental neutron activation analysis, preliminary iridium concentrations are measured for the first time in sedimentary rocks collected in the Brazilian territory. These techniques for determinations of iridium will be useful to check the asteroid impact hypothesis, which is supposed to be the cause of the great Cretaceous/Tertiary mass extinction, using samples collected in the South Hemisphere. (Author)