Statistics matters in interpretations of non-traditional stable isotopic data

作者：Chun-Hui Li

摘要：Increasing volumes of of non-traditional stable isotope data have brought new opportunities to gain important insights into geochemical and planetary processes.However,there is a worrysome trend that the isotopic data are interpreted in a fashion that its statistical approaches are chosen subjectively.This communication summarizes the rules regarding calculating the mean,standard deviation and relative standard deviation of a population,as well as error propagation and significant digits.These rules should be used when reporting geochemical data,especially for isotope ratios.Using two examples,I show that statistics matters in isotopic data interpretation.

发文机构：CAS Key Laboratory of Crust-Mantle Materials and Environments CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology

关键词：ISOTOPICDATAprocessingErrorpropagationSIGNIFICANTDIGITSDifferencebetweenmeanswithUNCERTAINTIES

分类号： P59[天文地球—地球化学][天文地球—地质学]