Quantifying the age peaks, age ranges and weights of detrital ages based on the EM algorithm

Abstract

Detrital geochronology fundamentally involves the quantification of major age ranges and their weights winthin an age distribution. This study presents a streamlined approach, modeling the age distribution of detrital zircons using a normal mixture model, and employs the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm for precise estimations. A method is introduced to automatically select appropriate initial mean values for EM algorithm, enhancing its efficacy in detrital geochronology. This process entails multiple trials with varying numbers of age components leading to diverse k-component models. The model with the lowest Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) is identified as the most suitable. For accurate component number and weight determination, a substantial sample size (n > 200) is advisable.

Keywords

Detrital zircon geochronology / Expectation-Maximization algorithm / Kullback–Leibler divergence / Quantifying comparison / Age peaks, age ranges, and weights

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