This page was written by Dr Keir Nichols, who is using 14C exposure age dating to unravel the past behaviour of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). Given that the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland contain enough water to raise global sea level by about 65 metres, it is important to understand how ice …
What are cosmic rays? | The cosmic ray cascade | The cosmic ray intensity flux | Formation of cosmogenic nuclides | Further reading | Glossary | References | Comments | What are cosmic rays? Cosmic rays are high energy particles that flow into our solar system from outer space. They are essential for the production …
By Richard Selwyn Jones, from the Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington. In this article, Richard describes his research and how he uses cosmogenic nuclide ages to estimate rates of ice sheet thinning in Antarctica. All images are copyright Richard Selwyn Jones. An Antarctic expedition to estimate ice sheet thinning Antarctica might seem …
Quantifying ice sheet thinning using cosmogenic nuclide ages Read More »
What’s the difference between precision and accuracy? In the sciences, it is important to distinguish between precision and accuracy. If we use the analogue of a clock we can investigate this further. Your wrist watch may measure time with a precision of one second. A stop watch may time your race with a precision of …
How can we date rocks? | Using cosmogenic nuclides in glacial geology | Sampling strategies cosmogenic nuclide dating | Difficulties in cosmogenic nuclide dating | Calculating an exposure age | Further Reading | References | Comments | How can we date rocks? Cosmogenic nuclide dating can be used to determine rates of ice-sheet thinning and …
This page was contributed by Dr Georgina King from the Aberystwyth Luminescence Research Laboratory in the Institute for Geography and Earth Sciences. Introduction | How do we measure the OSL signal? | How do we measure the radiation dose rate? | Calculating Age | Challenges for OSL | Case studies of OSL dating in glacial …
This section was contributed by Dr Beatrice Demarchi at the University of York. Introduction to amino acid racemisation (AAR) Amino acid geochronology is a relative dating technique able to span the whole Quaternary. It can be applied to a range of common materials which are directly related to the human occupation of an archaeological site, …
We can indirectly date glacial sediments by looking at the organic materials above and below glacial sediments. Radiocarbon dating provides the age of organic remains that overly glacial sediments. It was one of the earliest techniques to be developed, during the 1940s. Radiocarbon dating works because an isotope of carbon, 14C, is constantly formed in …
Many methods of dating glacial sediments As glacial geologists, some of the biggest questions that we’d like to answer are not only how large former ice sheets were, but also how fast did the recede and how quickly did they thin? This information is vital for numerical models, and answers questions about how dynamic ice …
