A New Albite Microanalytical Reference Material from Piz Beverin for Na, Al and Si Determination, and the Potential for New K‐Feldspar Reference Materials

Determination of alkali elements is important to Earth scientists, yet suitable and reliable microanalytical reference materials are lacking. This paper proposes a new albite reference material and evaluates the potential for future K‐feldspar reference materials. The proposed Piz Beverin albite reference material from Switzerland yields a homogeneous composition at the centimetre‐ to micrometre‐scale for Si, Al and Na with 2% relative local variations of Na, K and Ba contents. The three other investigated sets of K‐feldspar crystals are yellow sanidine crystals from Itrongay (Madagascar). Despite distinct compositions, EPMA confirms they are each homogeneous at the centimetre to micrometre scale for Si, Al and K and have no apparent inclusions; further investigation to find larger amounts of these materials is therefore justified. Key Points Evaluation of microanalytical reference materials using combined EPMA, LA‐ICP‐MS and XRF analysis. New 99.5(2)% albite microanalytical reference materials from Piz Beverin (Switzerland) for quantitative analysis by SEM, EPMA and similar. Potential for new K‐feldspar reference material from Itrongay (Madagascar).