Exploration for Proterozoic sedimentary-hosted mineral and energy resources can greatly benefit from geochronological methods that date the depositional age of sedimentary rocks that predate the Early Cambrian evolution of biomineralizing organisms. Previously, the lack of such methods made intra-basin (let alone extra-basin) correlation difficult and hindered the development of sequence-stratigraphic models that form a major parameter in any mineral system analysis. In addition, the lack of accurate and reasonably precise age constraints makes it hard to reconstruct the evolution of the earth-surface systems (biosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere) that make our planet habitable to large metazoans such as ourselves. New developments in laser-ablation inductively-coupled-plasma mass-spectrometry (LA-ICPMS), using a reaction-cell embedded within the instrument that is bracketed by two separate mass spectrometers (LA-ICPMS/MS), has allowed a resurgence in geochronology that uses beta-decay radiometric systems, such as Rb–Sr, Lu–Hf, Re–Os and even K–Ca.