Deciphering sedimentary recycling via multiproxy in situ analyses

Sedimentary rocks and modern sediments sample large volumes of the Earth’s crust, and pre-serve units that vary greatly in age and composition. Determining the provenance of component minerals is complicated by the ability of some minerals to be recycled through multiple sedimentary cycles, so minerals from completely unrelated sources may end up in the same sedimentary basin. To untangle these multi-stage signals, two or more chemical signatures measured in minerals with different stability are required. For instance, labile minerals, such as feldspar, can break down rapidly during sedimentary transport, while refractory minerals, such as zircon, can be much more resilient and survive repeated recycling.