The amount of zircon U-Pb geochronological data for China has grown rapidly in recent years. Nearly 410,000 items of zircon U-Pb geochronological data, representing more than 7,000 relevant articles in the Elsevier Science Database, have been collected to a database in this research. Statistics on the ages and absolute errors of these collated data, yielded smallest standard errors for ( 206 Pb/ 238 U), ( 207 Pb/ 235 U), and ( 207 Pb/ 206 Pb) ages within respective time intervals of < 1388.96 Ma, 1388.96-3282.52 Ma, and > 3282.52 Ma. The ages and their absolute errors were determined using three main geochronology methods, based on laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometer (LA-ICP -MS), sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP), and secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) measurements. We compared the influence of these different methods on errors for each age interval. In addition, using a Gaussian model of multi-peak fitting of zircon U-Pb age frequencies, we identified seven growth peaks in zircons from the
<p>The continental crust is formed by the mantle&#8217;s successive crystallization differentiation and then aggregation, which is the result of the continuous energy acquisition and evolution of the mantle. This process has been objectively recorded in the growth of zircons which are widely present in the continental crust, owing to the close relationship between the zircon Th/U ratio and the crystallization temperature of zircons. As shown by theoretical calculations, phenomenon statistics, and/or crystallization simulations, higher zircon Th/U generally indicates higher zircon (re)crystallization temperature in metamorphic and magmatic systems. Here, we compiled ~600,000 zircon Th/U data from the global continental crust and obtained the time series of zircon Th/U ratios. The average level of the Th/U ratio in global zircons has a slow growth trend from old to new and fluctuates quasi-periodically around 0.5. There are two significant cycles of zircon Th/U ratios, ca. 600 and 120 Myr, which are associated with the supercontinent cycle and whole-mantle convection, respectively. It is inferred that the zircon Th/U periodicity is related to the periodic thermal state changes in the mantle, which might be regulated by tidal energy dissipation.</p>
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