QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS OF TRACE-ELEMENT ABUNDANCES IN GLASSES AND MINERALS - A COMPARISON OF LASER-ABLATION INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA-MASS SPECTROMETRY, SOLUTION INDUCTIVELY-COUPLED PLASMA-MASS SPECTROMETRY, PROTON MICROPROBE AND ELECTRON-MICROPROBE DATA

Many geological, environmental and industrial applications can be enha nced through integrated microbeam and bulk geochemical determinations of major and trace element concentrations, Advantages of in situ micro analysis include minimal sample preparation, low blanks, information a bout the spatial distribution of compositional characteristics and the ability to avoid microscopic inclusions of foreign material, In this paper we compare trace element data obtained by laser ablation ICP-MS, solution ICP-MS, electron microprobe analysis and proton microprobe a nalysis for a variety of silicate glasses and minerals, New determinat ions for 36 trace elements in BCR-2G, a microbeam glass standard, are presented. Results obtained by the various microbeam and solution meth ods agree well for concentrations ranging over several orders of magni tude. Replicate analyses of BCR-2G demonstrate an analytical precision of 2-8% relative (1 sigma) for all elements by laser ablation ICP-MS and less than or equal to 3% by solution ICP-MS, except for Li (5%), T hese data emphasize the utility of laser ablation ICP-MS as a quantita tive microbeam technique capable of rapid, precise determinations of s ub-ppm trace element abundances in a variety of targets.