Detrital zircon geochronology can help address stratigraphic- to lithospheric-scale geological questions. The approach is reliant on statistically robust, representative age distributions that fingerprint source areas. However, there is a range of biases that may influence any detrital age signature. Despite being a fundamental and controllable source of bias, handpicking of zircon grains has received surprisingly little attention. Here, we show statistically significant differences in age distributions between bulk-mounted and handpicked fractions from an unconsolidated heavy mineral sand deposit. Although there is no significant size difference between bulk-mounted and handpicked grains, there are significant differences in their aspect ratio, circularity and colour, which indicate inadvertent preferential visual selection of euhedral and coloured zircon grains. Grain colour comparisons between dated and bulk zircon fractions help quantify bias. Bulk-mounting is the preferred method to avoid human-induced selection bias in detrital zircon geochronology.

中文翻译：

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每个锆石都应该有一个日期：碎屑年代学中的选择偏差

碎屑锆石年代学可以帮助解决地层到岩石圈尺度的地质问题。该方法依赖于指纹源区域的统计稳健、具有代表性的年龄分布。然而，存在一系列可能影响任何碎屑年龄特征的偏差。尽管是一种基本且可控的偏差来源，但锆石颗粒的手工采摘却很少受到关注。在这里，我们展示了松散重矿物砂矿床中散装和精选部分之间年龄分布的统计学显着差异。虽然散装和手工采摘的颗粒之间没有显着的尺寸差异，但它们的纵横比、圆形度和颜色存在显着差异，这表明自形和有色锆石颗粒的不经意的优先视觉选择。过时和散装锆石部分之间的晶粒颜色比较有助于量化偏差。散装镶嵌是避免碎屑锆石年代学中人为选择偏差的首选方法。