Environmental studies in Antarctica on the basis of tritium and radiocarbon measurements

Abstract

In 1975 and 1977, samples from snow, firn, atmospheric CO₂, plants, and penguin guano were collected near the Soviet Antarctic research station Molodezhnaya. The results of tritium, deuterium, oxygen-18, ¹³C, and ¹⁴C measurements are discussed. From the tritium, deuterium, and ¹⁸O measurement results of a firn profile at the Hays glacier, a value of the accumulation rate of 30 g water per cm2 and year could be evaluated. By means of ¹⁴C dating, the age of penguin breeding places was determined to be 1500±500 years. ¹⁴C data from atmospheric CO₂ and plants are discussed in terms of the age of the plants.

Keywords:

• age estimation
• Antarctica
• carbon-13
• carbon-14
• carbon dioxide
• deuterium
• isotope dating
• oxygen-18
• plant
• tritium

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the cooperation of the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Leningrad, USSR, the Central Earth Physics Institute, and the Central Institute for Isotope and Radiation Research of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR.

Notes

^†Original version published in Vol. 51 of ‘ZfI-Mitteilungen’, Leipzig, Germany, 1982, pp. 87–100.

The authors are grateful to R. Mörseburg for taking firn samples from a glacier crevasse.

The authors are indebted to J. Grabczak, Mining Academy of Kraków, Poland, for measuring deuterium and oxygen-18.

Samples from Novolazarevskaya Station were taken by G. Strauch, Leipzig.