Trapped Gas Composition and Chronology of the Vostok Ice Core

Abstract: This data set includes a time scale for the Vostok ice core, retrieved from Vostok Station on the East Antarctic Plateau. This chronology is derived by orbitally tuning to molecular oxygen to nitrogen (O<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub>) ratios in occluded air for depths d...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Bender, Michael, Suwa, Makoto
Format: Dataset
Language:unknown
Published: IEDA: US Antarctic Program Data Center 2007
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Online Access:http://get.iedadata.org/metadata/iso/609311
Description
Summary:Abstract: This data set includes a time scale for the Vostok ice core, retrieved from Vostok Station on the East Antarctic Plateau. This chronology is derived by orbitally tuning to molecular oxygen to nitrogen (O<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub>) ratios in occluded air for depths deeper than 1550 m (greater than 112,000 years old), and by gas correlation to the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) chronology for the ice core section that is shallower than 1422 m (less than 102,000 years old). Because of poor gas preservation in air bubbles in shallower depths, investigators could only constrain the Vostok chronology for the section deeper than 1550 m by O<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub>. Thus for the shallower section of the core, they synchronized the Vostok delta oxygen-18 (&delta;<sup>18</sup>O) and methane (CH<sub>4</sub>) measurements to those of the GISP2 to obtain the chronology (see Bender, et al. 2006). Note, CH<sub>4</sub> data are not included in this data set. Investigators analyzed the O<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub> and the<em><strong> </strong></em>&delta;<sup>18</sup>O record ratios for approximately the past 115,000 to 400,000 years in the Vostok ice core. They combined new measurements for O<sub>2</sub>/N<sub>2</sub> and &delta;<sup>18</sup>O with data from Bender (2002) and Petit, et al. (1999), respectively. Data are in Microsoft Excel format and are available via FTP.