A short help to ZircoCalc
What is Zircocalc ?
Zircocalc is a software dedicated to the estimation of the cooling rate during zircon formation. It is based on the use of measurement of trace elements concentration in the crystal. The trace elements have different temperature-dependent diffusion and saturation constants, and as a consequence their spatial distribution in the crystal provides information about the temperature during crystal growth.
The implementation follows the model presented in [Melnik-Bindeman, Am. Mineralogist, 2018]. The inversion prrocedure is described in [Fehrenbach-Melnik-Borisova, preprint].
The temperature decrease is estimated first as a linear ramp decrease. In a second step the time interval is iteratively refined by subdivision. The number of subinterval at the end of the algorithm is 2**s, where s is the number of subdivisions.
How to use Zircocalc ?
The steps to follow are:
upload the data file
select the columns to be used (checkboxes), the units and the valid data range (valid rows)
modify (if necessary) the processing parameters
start the computation
What format should have the data file ?
The data file can either be a .csv file, of a .xls/.xlsx file (in this case only the first sheet is accounted for).
One column should be labeled 'Distance' and contains the distances to the center of the crystal (in microns).
Each column should be labeled with the name of the trace element, in the list Th/U/P/Y/Hf (no spaces, no other character), and can be selected using checkboxes. Other columns will be ignored.
feedback on the software: jerome.fehrenbach@math.univ-toulouse.fr