Isotope geochronology is an important tool to help solve geological problems, from volcanology to climatology, from petrology to tectonics and sedimentology. It is difficult to find cutting-edge geological research that does entirely without the information on the timing and the rates of geological processes. This textbook aims to communicate to readers a first-hand experience of the long-and-winding road from sample collection to the publishable presentation and interpretation of results in their entire context. The intended readership includes both undergraduate and graduate students as well as practitioners of other geological disciplines to gain in-depth hands-on experience of isotope geochronology.
Chapter
1. Measurements.
Chapter
2. Radioactivity and geochronology.-
Chapter
3. RbSr dating.
Chapter
4. SmNd, LaCe, and LuHf dating.
Chapter
5. ReOs, PtOs and PtHe dating.
Chapter
6. UPb and Th-Pb dating.
Chapter
7. U-series disequilibrium dating.
Chapter
8. Noble gas daughters of U and
Th.
Chapter
9. The K-Ar system.
Chapter
10. Extinct and Cosmogenic
Nuclides.
Chapter
11. Glossary.
Igor Maria Villa studied physics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. From 1976 to 1991, he served first as Researcher and later as Senior Researcher at the Istituto di Geocronologia e Geochimica Isotopica (CNR), Pisa. Between 1979 and 1981, he was a Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, USA. From 1991 to 2018, he worked at the University of Bern (Switzerland), first as Oberassistent and subsequently as Professor of Geochronology at the Institute of Geology. From 2002 to 2022, he was Professor of Geochemistry at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. Since 2012, he is serving as Director of the interdepartmental Centro Datazioni e Archeometria at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Between 1975 and 2025, he authored or co authored one physics paper, 245 geochronology papers, covering all chapters of this book, and 25 archaeometry peer reviewed publications. He has been invited as a keynote speaker at international conferences 18 times.
