Tracing the oxygen isotope composition of the upper Earth’s atmosphere using cosmic spherules

Andreas Pack (), Andres Höweling, Dominik C. Hezel, Maren T. Stefanak, Anne-Katrin Beck, Stefan T. M. Peters, Sukanya Sengupta, Daniel Herwartz and Luigi Folco
Additional contact information
Andreas Pack: Universität Göttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum
Andres Höweling: Universität Göttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum
Dominik C. Hezel: Universität Köln, Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie
Maren T. Stefanak: Universität Göttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum
Anne-Katrin Beck: Universität Göttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum
Stefan T. M. Peters: Universität Göttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum
Sukanya Sengupta: Universität Göttingen, Geowissenschaftliches Zentrum
Daniel Herwartz: Universität Köln, Institut für Geologie und Mineralogie
Luigi Folco: Universitá di Pisa

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Molten I-type cosmic spherules formed by heating, oxidation and melting of extraterrestrial Fe,Ni metal alloys. The entire oxygen in these spherules sources from the atmosphere. Therefore, I-type cosmic spherules are suitable tracers for the isotopic composition of the upper atmosphere at altitudes between 80 and 115 km. Here we present data on I-type cosmic spherules collected in Antarctica. Their composition is compared with the composition of tropospheric O2. Our data suggest that the Earth's atmospheric O2 is isotopically homogenous up to the thermosphere. This makes fossil I-type micrometeorites ideal proxies for ancient atmospheric CO2 levels.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15702 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15702

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15702

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().