TERMITE: An R script for fast reduction of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry data and its application to trace element measurements

Abstract

RATIONALE: High spatial resolution Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICPMS) determination of trace element concentrations is of great interest for geological and environmental studies. Data reduction is a very important aspect of LA-ICP-MS, and several commercial programs for handling LA-ICPMS trace element data are available. Each of these software packages has its specific advantages and disadvantages. METHODS: Here we present TERMITE, an R script for the reduction of LA-ICPMS data, which can reduce both spot and line scan measurements. Several parameters can be adjusted by the user, who does not necessarily need prior knowledge in R. Currently, ten reference materials with different matrices for calibration of LA-ICPMS data are implemented, and additional reference materials can be added by the user. TERMITE also provides an optional outlier test, and the results are provided graphically (as a pdf file) as well as numerically (as a csv file). RESULTS: As an example, we apply TERMITE to a speleothem sample and compare the results with those obtained using the commercial software GLITTER. The two programs give similar results. TERMITE is particularly useful for samples that are homogeneous with respect to their major element composition (in particular for the element used as an internal standard) and when many measurements are performed using the same analytical parameters. In this case, data evaluation using TERMITE is much faster than with all other available software, and the concentrations of more than 100 single spot measurements can be calculated in less than a minute. CONCLUSIONS: TERMITE is an open-source software for the reduction of LA-ICPMS data, which is particularly useful for the fast, reproducible evaluation of large datasets of samples that are homogeneous with respect to their major element composition.

NanoSr – A New Carbonate Microanalytical Reference Material for In Situ Strontium Isotope Analysis

“…As shown in Figure 1e, the pore space of the pressed nanopowder pellet is < 1 µm, indicating a well-compacted material, which is a prerequisite for microhomogeneity. In addition, the Ca mass fraction is in good agreement with Ca mass fractions commonly used for LA-ICP-MS trace element determinations in carbonates, where Ca is used as an internal reference (e.g., Jochum et al 2005, Mischel et al 2017, Weber et al 2018b), although it is slightly lower than expected from the stoichiometric value CaO for calcium carbonate of 56.03% m/m. For the use as a Sr isotope reference material, the precise knowledge of the Ca mass fraction is not relevant for calibration purposes.…”

“…NIST SRM 612 and GSJ JCt‐1 were used as calibration materials. Data reduction was performed offline, following the calculations given in Mischel et al (). Operating parameters for all LA‐ICP‐MS measurements are presented in Table .…”

Evidence of warm and humid interstadials in central Europe during early MIS 3 revealed by a multi-proxy speleothem record

“…Data reduction was performed using an in-house Excel spreadsheet. Details of the calculations are given in Mischel et al (2017).…”

IsoFishR: An application for reproducible data reduction and analysis of strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) obtained via laser-ablation MC-ICP-MS

“…The IsoFishR application is written in the statistical programming language R, which is an open source language that is supported across all major operating systems [ 31 ]. R was chosen because it will ensure the usability and longevity of the application due to the large amounts of data manipulation and statistical packages already available, including packages directly aimed at isotope and elemental analyses [ 32 – 35 ]. The backbone of the IsoFishR application is the R package shiny [ 36 ], which allows for the creation of an interactive graphical user interface (GUI) connected to a running R session.…”