| Institution: | Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse, Area di Ricerca del CNR, Via G. Moruzzi 1, 1-56124 Pisa, Italy;International Atomic Energy Agency, Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences, Vienna, Austria;Department of Chemistry, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA;Departement für Chemie und Biochemie, Universität Bern, Switzerland;Geochemical Technologies Corporation, Wheat Ridge, Colorado, USA;Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières, Orléans, France;GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany;Institut de Physique du Globe, Universitéde Paris VI, Paris, France;Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA;GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany;West Coast Analytical Services, Santa Fe Springs, California, USA;SGAB, LuleåTekniska Universiteit, Luleå, Sweden;Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of Tokyo, Japan;Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt, St. Gallen, Switzerland;Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, Qinghai, China;Department of Earth Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada |
| Abstract: | The Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse (IGG), on behalf and with the support of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), prepared eight geological materials (three natural waters and five rocks and minerals), intended for a blind interlaboratory comparison of measurements of boron isotopic composition and concentration. The materials were distributed to twenty seven laboratories - virtually all those performing geochemical boron isotope analyses in the world -which agreed to participate in the intercomparison exercise. Only fifteen laboratories, however, ultimately submitted the isotopic and/or concentration results they obtained on the intercomparison materials. The results demonstrate that interlaboratory reproducibility is not well reflected by the precision values reported by the individual laboratories and this observation holds true for both boron concentration and isotopic composition. The reasons for the discrepancies include fractionations due to the chemical matrix of materials, relative shift of the zero position on the δ11B scale and a lack of well characterized materials for calibrating absolute boron content measurements. The intercomparison materials are now available at the IAEA (solid materials) and IGG (waters) for future distribution. |
