Abstract
MEASUREMENT of radionuclides by nuclear accelerator spec-trometry may lead to wider application of measurement of long-lived cosmogenic isotopes to archeological, geophysical and astrophysical problems (see ref. 1 for further details of the technique). We previously2 discussed the prospects for the isotope 10Be and reported the successful measurement of this isotope using both the internal2 and the external3 ion sources of the Grenoble cyclotron. 10Be (half life = 1.5 × 106yr; ref. 4) is formed by the interaction of cosmic rays with the Earth's atmosphere, and then precipitated out into various geophysical reservoirs such as marine sediments and polar ice5. The 10Be profile in these reservoirs can thus be used to search for evidence of historical variations in parameters (geomagnetic field, solar modulation, primary cosmic ray intensity) which influence the deposition rate. We report here the use of the accelerator technique for the determination of 10Be concentrations in samples of Antarctic ice believed to be about 1, 000 and 5, 000 yr old. The only published measurement for 10Be in polar deposits is that of McCorkell et al.6 who made their measurement on a sample extracted from 1.2 × 106 l of Greenland ice. The present measurements were made on samples from 10 l. We believe this difference is indicative of the tremendous potential that is offered by the accelerator technique.
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References
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RAISBECK, G., YIOU, F., FRUNEAU, M. et al. Measurement of 10Be in 1,000- and 5,000-year-old Antarctic ice. Nature 275, 731–733 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1038/275731a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/275731a0
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Journal of Radioanalytical Chemistry (1980)
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