Definition
In its original, and most widely used form, isotope dilution is a method for determining elemental concentrations in samples of minerals, rocks, and fluids. It involves adding a known quantity of an enriched isotope “spike” to the (usually dissolved) sample, followed by isotopic analysis of the resulting spike-sample mixture in an isotope ratio mass spectrometer. One of the main applications of the technique is in radiometric age determinations (geochronology) where the concentrations of parent and daughter isotopes must be measured in order to calculate the geological age of a sample. The concept has evolved further, with the development of double- and triple-spikes composed of multiple enriched isotopes. These more complex variants are designed to allow the monitoring and correction of instrumental mass bias effects encountered during mass spectrometric isotope ratio measurements of many different elements, allowing the acquisition of isotope ratio data with very high...
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Woodhead, J. (2018). Isotope Dilution. In: White, W.M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geochemistry. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39312-4_241
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