9418927 Lutz Apatite fission-track data are a valuable source of information for examining the low end of the thermal history of rocks. Instead of exhibiting a blocking temperature above which tracks are annealed and below which they are preserved, tracks are progressively annealed (by shortening from the track ends) within a relatively broad annealing zone. Thus track length distributions contain information about rate of cooling while within the zone of partial annealing and, potentially, on the number and intensity of multiple heating events in the history of the sample. This project will rigorously quantify track length distributions and perform statistical analysis to determine the degree to which such information can be extracted from a well-characterized data set. Results will be of interest in the interpretation of fission track data generally.
