A Method for Continuous (PU)-P-239 Determinations in Arctic and Antarctic Ice Cores

作者：Arienzo M M^*; McConnell J R; Chellman N; Criscitiello A S; Curran M; Fritzsche D; Kipfstuhl S; Mulvaney R; Nolan M; Opel T; Sigl M; Steffensen J P

来源：Environmental Science & Technology, 2016, 50(13): 7066-7073.

DOI：10.1021/acs.est.6b01108

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

• 出版日期2016-7-5
• 单位British Antarctic Survey