Review: Elemental Analysis of Individual Fluid Inclusions by Laser Ablation-ICP-MS

Fluid inclusions are the most direct record of the chemical and physical properties of ancient fluids trapped deep in the Earth's crust and provide essential information about the geological formation of hydrothermal ore deposits. Laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) has become a most powerful technique for the elemental analysis of individual fluid inclusions trapped within crystals of gangue as well as ore minerals. This review aims to summarize recent developments in elemental analysis of individual fluid inclusions by LA-ICP-MS and discusses the solutions for improving the success rate of ablation, accurate quantification, and selection of suitable fluid inclusions. Significant future progress can be achieved by developing a non-transparent ore mineral-hosted fluid inclusions analytical method using the combination of near-infrared light microscopy (NIR) and LA-ICP-MS, and further improving the detection limit by using high sensitive mass spectrometry and a fast extracting LA cell, accurate measurement of the internal standard element concentration, and development of the well-determined calibration materials and/or the fluid inclusion certified reference materials (CRMs).