A Method for Continuous 239Pu Determinations in Arctic and Antarctic Ice Cores

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b01108
• Publication Date: 2016-05-31T14:50:05Z
• Authors: M. M. Arienzo; J. R. McConnell; N. Chellman; A. S. Criscitiello; M. Curran; D. Fritzsche; S. Kipfstuhl; R. Mulvaney; M. Nolan; T. Opel; M. Sigl; J.P. Steffensen
• Keywords: Ice core

Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing (NWT) resulted in the injection of plutonium (Pu) into atmosphere and subsequent global deposition. We present a new method for continuous semiquantitative measurement (239)Pu ice cores, which was used to develop annual records fallout from NWT ten cores Greenland Antarctica. The measured directly using an inductively coupled plasma-sector field mass spectrometer, thereby reducing analysis time increasing depth-resolution with respect previous methods. To validate this method, we compared our one year averaged results published other NWT. profiles Arctic reflected trends were agreement discrete Pu lower latitude cores. measurements Antarctic tracked low NWT, consistent previously Advantages are (1) reduced sample preparation time; (2) no requirement additional samples determinations; (3) exactly coregistered all chemical, elemental, isotopic, gas analytical system; (4) long half-life means record is stable through time.