A new protocol for oxygen isotope analysis of authigenic and biogenic fine silica grains using laser-extraction technique

We report here a 30 W CO2 laser heating protocol for analyzing oxygen isotope composition (δ18O in ‰ vs. V-SMOW) of quartz and amorphous silica grains lower than 50 and 2 μm with a good external precision (1σ < 0.15‰). This technique is used to investigate δ18O composition of macro-, micro- and crypto-crystalline quartz cements of quartzite levels occurring in a sand sequence from the South of France (Apt Series), after a physical separation of the quartz cements. δ18O data obtained from this technique are compared with δ18O data obtained from in situ ion microprobe analyses. This study also presents promising results on δ18O analysis of phytoliths obtained with the laser heating protocol (1σ < 0.1‰).