We undertook U-Pb analysis - both high precision ID-TIMS and high spatial resolution LA-MC-ICP-MS – to determine the age of the Wensleydale Granite. This was done in order to resolve the ambiguity surrounding an earlier (1974) Rb/Sr age determination.

The dataset contains detrital zircon U-Pb ages from a large scale detrital provenance study of modern and recent sand and silt from the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) and its proposed sources in the Yellow River, its Tibetan headwaters, and the Taklamakan Desert, which lies upwind from the CLP. (NERC grant NE/I009248/1)

Zircon U-Pb isotope data are presented for eight plutonic rocks from the Masirah ophiolite and one plutonic rock from the Ra's Madrakah ophiolite (south east Oman). These data constrain the age of formation of the two ophiolite nappes exposed on Masirah Island (early Cretaceous), whereas two intrusions with younger ages (late Cretaceous) overlap with the proposed emplacement age of the ophiolite. The data cover two sites in the Masirah Lower Nappe, two sites in the Masirah Upper Nappe (on Masirah Island, off the SE coast of Oman) and one site on Ra's Madrakah (on the mainland of Oman). The interpretation and discussion of these data form part of a manuscript submitted to Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Data collection was done using chemical abrasion isotope dilution thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (CA-ID-TIMS) at the NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratories at the British geological Survey, supported by NERC Isotope Geosciences Facilities award IP-1919-0619. This work resulted from a PhD project funded by NERC GW4+ DTP grant NE/L002434/1.