High resolution elemental imaging of geological materials has become routine, however, increasing the number of measured elements in the analytical method reduces precision of measurement, which is highly detrimental for isotope ratio measurement and geochronological age determination. Splitting the laser ablation induced aerosol and diverting it to two or more ICPMS instruments ensures each unit is optimised for a single sub-application, in this case, multielement imaging via quadrupole ICPMS and U/Pb isotope ratio measurements via sector-field ICPMS, thus maintaining critical measurement precision for the latter. Furthermore, data from the quadrupole ICPMS is used to filter signals from the sector-field ICPMS data, resulting in an age calculation with higher fidelity than a single ICPMS can manage. 

Here we present the use of a software-controlled ECHO split stream device to simultaneously map major elements and U/Pb isotope systems on two separate ICPMS instruments in a Messinian limestone. Using Iolite4, data filtering based on major elemental distribution from quadrupole ICPMS (signal intensity of 24Mg, 66Zn and 137Ba based on Drost et al. 2018), provided a means to automatically identify banding within the sample and thus define ROI’s, from which isotope information was extracted for age determination.