Fission track annealing characteristics of epidote: applications to geochronology and geology

Systematic annealing experiments on fission tracks in epidote, under standardized etching conditions, have been carried out to obtain the correction curve. The corrected fission track ages of epidotes from the Sausar group, Madhya Pradesh (India), coupled with their annealing characteristics help to evaluate the cooling history of Sausar belt. A comparative study of the annealing properties of epidote minerals shows a similar behaviour. The mean values of fission fragment range for induced fission 235U, uranium concentration and activation energy determined are 10.9 μm, 4 x 10-6 g/g and 2.0 eV, respectively. (author)