Abstract:Zircon radiation damage dating is a new low- temperature thermochronology method (a closure temperature of ~230 ± 25℃). Zircon radiation damage accumulated time, namely zircon radiation damage age, can be obtained by combing the accumulated α- fluence calculated by the Raman FWHM (ν3) with U and Th concentrations measured. Compared with other low- temperature thermochronology methods, this method shows a broad application prospect in geological research due to the advantages of simple test, high efficiency, low cost, and double (multiple) dating, which has been successfully applied to the fields of tracing source areas and revealing pluton thermal events presently. However, there exist several key issues to be solved for the dating method, such as spatial mismatch of experimental measurements on a micro- scale, uncertainty in closure temperature, and a relatively large deviation in zircon radiation damage age, which undoubtedly restrict the further popularization and application of this method in the field of earth sciences. This contribution systematically introduces the origin, theory, and calculation process of the method, summarizes some important progress of the related applications, discusses briefly the remaining research problems of the zircon radiation damage dating method, and looks forward to the development trends of this method to provide a new technical method for the development of geological chronology in the future.