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 (O2/N2) 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 O2/N2. Thus for the shallower section of the core, they synchronized the Vostok delta oxygen-18 (δ18O) and methane (CH4) measurements to those of the GISP2 to obtain the chronology (see Bender, et al. 200 6). Note, CH4 data are not included in this data set. Investigators analyzed the O2/N2 and the δ18O record ratios for approximately the past 115,000 to 400,000 years in the Vostok ice core. They combined new measurements for O2/N2 and δ18O with data from Bender (2002) and Petit, et al. (1999), respectively. Data are in Microsoft Excel format and are available via FTP.
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
City:
Boulder
Province or State:
CO
Postal Code:
80309-0449
Country:
USA
Publications/References
Bender, M. L. 2002. Orbital tuning chronology for the Vostok climate record supported by trapped gas composition. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 204(1), 275-289.
Petit, J. J., J. Jouzel, D. Raynaud, N. I. Barkov, J.-M. Barnola, I. Basile, M. Bender, et al. 1999. Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature 399, 429-436.
Suwa, M. 2007. Chronologies for ice cores constrained by their gas records and their implications for climate history for the past 400,000 years. PhD thesis, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.
Suwa, M., and M. Bender. In press. Chronology of the Vostok ice core constrained by O2/N2 ratios of occluded air, and its implication for the Vostok climate records. Quaternary Science Reviews.
