Journal article
Recent increase in Antarctic Peninsula ice core uranium concentrations
M Potocki, PA Mayewski, AV Kurbatov, JC Simões, DA Dixon, I Goodwin, AM Carleton, MJ Handley, R Jaña, EV Korotkikh
Atmospheric Environment | PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD | Published : 2016
Open access
Abstract
Understanding the distribution of airborne uranium is important because it can result in both chemical and radiological toxicity. Ice cores offer the most robust reconstruction of past atmospheric levels of toxic substances. Here we present the first sub-annually dated, continuously sampled ice core documenting change in U levels in the Southern Hemisphere. The ice core was recovered from the Detroit Plateau, northern Antarctic Peninsula, in 2007 by a joint Brazilian-Chilean-US team. It displays a significant increase in U concentration that coincides with reported mining activities in the Southern Hemisphere, notably Australia. Raw U concentrations in the Detroit Plateau ice core increased ..
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Awarded by Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Funding Acknowledgements
This work was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (1203640, 1042883) and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NA08OAR4310867) to Paul Mayewski, with additional support from the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, 557053/2009-9) to Jefferson C. Simoes, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. Field logistics provided by Instituto Antartico Chileno, Universidad de Magallanes, Oscar Viel Icebreaker, Fuerza Aerea de Chile, Alejo Contreras Staeding and Aerovias DAP and personal of Chilean base Escudero in King George Island. Data used in this paper are available at National Snow and Ice Data Center (http://nsidc.org/data). The authors gratefully acknowledge the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) for the provision of the HYSPLIT transport and dispersion model and/or READY website (http://www.ready.noaa. gov) used in this publication.