A revisionist timetable for the ice ages
In terms of sheer mass, there's no contest. In one corner, there's a land-based record of ice age climates that takes the form of a single carbonate cylinder about the size of the cardboard tube in a roll of paper towels. In the other corner, there's the marine record, which draws on the tons of deep-sea mud cored around the world during the past 20 years. But a group of researchers argues that the lone continental record, drilled from a wall of calcite in Devil's Hole, Nevada, is enough to unseat the conventional wisdom about the causes of the ice ages. The reason a single stick of carbonate has received all this attention is the unique resource it contains: a precisely dated continental climate record of the past 600,000 years. The record was deposited from ground water, which carried a measure of air temperature in the form of the water's oxygen isotope composition. As the water seeped into Devil's Hole - an open, water-filled fault zone - carbonate crystallized out, locking up some of the water's oxygen and building up a climate record layer by layer. Drilling into the walls of the fault, a core was retrieved spanning layers formed between 60,000 and 560,000 years ago, as measured by high-precision uranium thorium dating.
- OSTI ID:
- 7035272
- Journal Information:
- Science (Washington, D.C.); (United States), Journal Name: Science (Washington, D.C.); (United States) Vol. 258:5080; ISSN SCIEA; ISSN 0036-8075
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Continuous 500,000-year climate record from vein calcite in Devils Hole, Nevada
Tectonism and the formation of Devils Hole, Nevada: Hydrologic and paleochronologic implications
Related Subjects
290301 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Environment
Health
& Safety-- Regional & Global Environmental Aspects-- (1992-)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
540110*
ACTINIDE ISOTOPES
AMBIENT TEMPERATURE
CALCITE
CARBONATE MINERALS
CLIMATIC CHANGE
DEVELOPED COUNTRIES
DRILL CORES
FEDERAL REGION IX
ISOTOPE RATIO
ISOTOPES
LITTLE ICE AGE
MINERALS
MONITORING
NEVADA
NORTH AMERICA
PALEOCLIMATOLOGY
PALEONTOLOGY
THORIUM ISOTOPES
URANIUM ISOTOPES
USA