Tracing the oxygen isotope composition of the upper Earth’s atmosphere using cosmic spherules

Molten I-type cosmic spherules formed by heating, oxidation and melting of extraterrestrial Fe,Ni metal alloys. The entire oxygen in these spherules sources from the atmosphere. Therefore, I-type cosmic spherules are suitable tracers for the isotopic composition of the upper atmosphere at altitudes...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pack, Andreas, Höweling, Andres, Hezel, Dominik C., Stefanak, Maren T., Beck, Anne-Katrin., Peters, Stefan T. M., Sengupta, Sukanya, Herwartz, Daniel, Folco, Luigi
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Nature Research 2017
Subjects:
ddc:620
Engineering & allied operations
info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/620
Antarc*
Antarctica
Online Access:https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000070814
https://publikationen.bibliothek.kit.edu/1000070814/4318755
https://doi.org/10.5445/IR/1000070814
http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:swb:90-708140
Description
Summary:Molten I-type cosmic spherules formed by heating, oxidation and melting of extraterrestrial Fe,Ni metal alloys. The entire oxygen in these spherules sources from the atmosphere. Therefore, I-type cosmic spherules are suitable tracers for the isotopic composition of the upper atmosphere at altitudes between 80 and 115 km. Here we present data on I-type cosmic spherules collected in Antarctica. Their composition is compared with the composition of tropospheric O₂. Our data suggest that the Earth’s atmospheric O₂ is isotopically homogenous up to the thermosphere. This makes fossil I-type micrometeorites ideal proxies for ancient atmospheric CO₂ ...

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