Setting a limit on anthropogenic sources of atmospheric ⁸¹Kr through Atom Trap Trace Analysis

Zappala, J.C.; Bailey, K.; Jiang, W.; Micklich, B.; Mueller, P.; O’Connor, T.P.; Purtschert, Roland (2017). Setting a limit on anthropogenic sources of atmospheric ⁸¹Kr through Atom Trap Trace Analysis. Chemical geology, 453, pp. 66-71. Elsevier 10.1016/j.chemgeo.2017.02.007

Text zappala17cg.pdf - Published Version Restricted to registered users only Available under License Publisher holds Copyright. Download (481kB)

We place a 2.5% limit on the anthropogenic contribution to the modern abundance of ⁸¹Kr/Kr in the atmosphere at the 90% confidence level. Due to its simple production and transport in the terrestrial environment, ⁸¹Kr (halflife = 230,000 yr) is an ideal tracer for old water and ice with mean residence times in the range of 10^5-10^6 years. In recent years, ⁸¹Kr-dating has been made available to the earth science community thanks to the development of Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA), a laser-based atom counting technique. Further upgrades and improvements to the ATTA technique now allow us to demonstrate ⁸¹Kr/Kr measurements with relative uncertainties of 1% and place this new limit on anthropogenic ⁸¹Kr. As a result of this limit, we have removed a potential systematic constraint for ⁸¹Kr-dating.

Interest & Impact

Downloads

1 since deposited on 01 Jun 2017
0 in the past 12 months

Citations

5 Citations in Web of Science ®
6 Citations in Scopus

Search

in Google Scholar™

Services

Actions (login required)

Edit item

Actions (login required)

Edit item