Proposal for an international molybdenum isotope measurement standard and data representation
Abstract
Molybdenum isotopes are increasingly widely applied in Earth Sciences. They are primarily used to investigate the oxygenation of Earth's ocean and atmosphere. However, more and more fields of application are being developed, such as magmatic and hydrothermal processes, planetary sciences or the tracking of environmental pollution. Here, we present a proposal for a unifying presentation of Mo isotope ratios in the studies of mass‐dependent isotope fractionation. We suggest that the δ 98/95 Mo of the NIST SRM 3134 be defined as +0.25‰. The rationale is that the vast majority of published data are presented relative to reference materials that are similar, but not identical, and that are all slightly lighter than NIST SRM 3134. Our proposed data presentation allows a direct first‐order comparison of almost all old data with future work while referring to an international measurement standard. In particular, canonical δ 98/95 Mo values such as +2.3‰ for seawater and −0.7‰ for marine Fe–Mn precipitates can be kept for discussion. As recent publications show that the ocean molybdenum isotope signature is homogeneous, the IAPSO ocean water standard or any other open ocean water sample is suggested as a secondary measurement standard, with a defined δ 98/95 Mo value of +2.34 ± 0.10‰ (2 s ).
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Uncertainties shown in Fig. 1 represent 2 SD of the mean (analytical precision) plus the propagated uncertainty from matching in-house reference materials to the universal standard NIST SRM 3136 where seawater display δ98/95Mo = 2.3 ‰.
“Uncertainties shown in Fig. 1 represent 2 SD of the mean (analytical precision) plus the propagated uncertainty from matching in-house reference materials to the universal standard NIST SRM 3136 where seawater display δ 98/95 Mo = 2.3 ‰ (75, 76).”
From Earliest land plants created modern levels of atmospheric oxygen (2016) · cites this paper as [76]
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- Authors
- Nägler, T. F., Anbar, A. D., Archer, C., Goldberg, T., Gordon, G. W., Greber, N. D., Siebert, C., Sohrin, Y., & Vance, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Bern (CH)
- Arizona State University (US)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Imperial College London (GB)
- GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (DE)
- Kyoto University (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Nägler, Thomas F.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-01-02
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 149-151
- ISSN
- 0150-5505 (ISSN-L)
- 1639-4488
- 1751-908X
- OpenAlex
- W1967074798
- Cited by
- 235
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 23 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 19 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 16 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 8.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research (publishedVersion)
- Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR) (acceptedVersion)
- BORIS (University Library Bern) (submittedVersion)
- Publication Database GFZ (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Natural Environment Research Council (NE/I017585/1, NE/G01308X/1)
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (24241004)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Fossils
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geophysics › Geological and Geochemical Analysis
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Scientific Measurement and Uncertainty Evaluation
- Keywords
- molybdenum isotopes, reference materials, mass-dependent fractionation, ocean oxygenation, measurement standards
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