Fission track annealing behaviour of minerals of the East Alligator River Uranium Field, N. T., Australia

The possibility of annealing of radiation damage in minerals and hence of track fading, always exists. This effect can be in response to a short time, higher temperature event, or be caused by prolonged annealing, at only a slightly elevated temperature during the geothermal history of earths crust. Track retention in minerals apatite, chlorite, biotite, phlogopite, muscovite, garnet, epidote and zircon have track retention over a wide range of temperatures (90–250°C), when we consider closing temperatures for fission track system. Further experiments have been made to determine the calibration curves relating track length shrinkage with track density reduction.