30,000 Years of Cosmic Dust in Antarctic Ice

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Winckler, Gisela, Fischer, Hubertus
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2006
• Subjects: Antarctic; Dronning Maud Land; Antarc*; Antarctica; EPICA; ice core
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1127469; https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1127469

Polar ice provides an archive for the influx of cosmic dust. Here, we present a high-resolution, glacial-to-interglacial record of cosmic dust using helium isotope analysis of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) ice core drilled in Dronning Maud Land. We obtained a relatively constant 3 He flux over the past 30,000 years. This finding excludes 3 He as a pacemaker of late Pleistocene glacial cycles. Rather, it supports 3 He as a constant flux parameter in paleoclimatic studies. A last glacial-to-Holocene shift of the 4 He/non‐sea salt Ca 2+ ratio appears to indicate a glacial-to-interglacial change in the terrestrial dust source.