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

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• 作者：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
• 刊名：Environmental Science & Technology
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：July 5, 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：50
• 期：13
• 页码：7066-7073
• 全文大小：502K
• 年卷期：0
• ISSN：1520-5851

文摘

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 ²³⁹Pu in ice cores, which was used to develop annual records of fallout from NWT in ten ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. The ²³⁹Pu 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 ²³⁹Pu records and other records of NWT. The ²³⁹Pu 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 ²³⁹Pu measurements in the Antarctic ice cores tracked low latitude NWT, consistent with previously published discrete records from Antarctica. Advantages of the continuous ²³⁹Pu 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 ²³⁹Pu record is stable through time.