Dating glacier ice of the last millennium by quantum technology.

ABSTRACT: Radiometric dating with ³⁹Ar covers a unique time span and offers key advances in interpreting environmental archives of the last millennium. Although this tracer has been acknowledged for decades, studies so far have been limited by the low abundance and radioactivity, thus requiring huge sample sizes. Atom trap trace analysis, an application of techniques from quantum physics such as laser cooling and trapping, allows us to reduce the sample volume by several orders of magnitude compared with conventional techniques. Here we show that the adaptation of this method to ³⁹Ar is now available for glaciological applications, by demonstrating the entire process chain for dating of alpine glacier ice by argon trap trace analysis (ArTTA). Ice blocks as small as a few kilogr

SUBMITTER: Feng Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6500108 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature