Zircons (Zr[SiO₄]) are minerals that crystallize out of the melt at an early stage, primarily in felsic and intermediate magmatites. They are characterised by their particular resistance to mechanical and chemical influences and are therefore preserved for a long time in sediments that emerge from such magmatites. Besides their U-Pb age determination, studies regarding their morphological features help to improve provenance studies.
Since different areas of origin of sediments are usually delimited by different age populations of the zircons depending on the geological evolutionary histories, areas of origin can be reconstructed by dating the zircons in the sediments. A sediment is therefore virtually the last link in a possible chain of geomorphological cascades. This so-called provenance research is a standard method in geology today, but is still rarely used in Quaternary research. In addition to the dating and thus assignment to a supply area, features on the grain surfaces of the zircons can provide information on the geomorphological transport mechanisms, an approach that is only slowly finding its way into research.
The aim of the lecture is to demonstrate the potential of provenance analysis and, in particular, surface morphological methods for Quaternary geomorphological questions using examples from the south-west of the USA.