ZIRCON TRACING APPLICATION OF PALEOCENE-EOCENE IN LISHUI SAG OF THE EAST CHINA SEA BASIN

Sedimentary mineral assemblages commonly contain detrital zircon crystals as part of the heavy mineral fraction, and zircon is a useful tool in geosciences research because of its stability. We can know its parent rock through zircon morphology and geochemistry and,at the same time,can get some information about some momentous geological events through zircon isotopic dating. A rapid method of REE content determination and isotopic dating for young zircon using Laser Ablation Microprobe-Inductively Coupled Mass Spectrometry has been developed, and we used the method to analyze some zircons of Paleocene-Eocene in Lishui sag and to evaluate the actual variation in REE composition of detrital zircon in a true sediment of a known mixed provenance. The zircon REEs exhibit a narrow abundance range with no systematic differences in pattern shape, and these evidences show zircon geochemical characters and zircon REE patterns are generally not useful as indicators of provenance.