Cosmogenic 26Al/10Be surface production ratio in Greenland

The assumed value for the cosmogenic 26Al/10Be surface production rate ratio in quartz is an important parameter for studies investigating the burial or subaerial erosion of long-lived surfaces and sediments. Recent models and data suggest that the production ratio is spatially variable and may be greater than originally thought. Here we present measured 26Al/10Be ratios for 24 continuously exposed bedrock and boulder surfaces spanning ~61–77°N in Greenland. Empirical measurements, such as ours, include nuclides produced predominately by neutron-induced spallation with percent-level contributions by muon interactions. The slope of a York regression line fit to our data is 7.3 ± 0.3 (1σ), suggesting that the 26Al/10Be surface production ratio exceeds the commonly used value of 6.75, at least in the Arctic. A higher 26Al/10Be production ratio has implications for multinuclide cosmogenic isotope studies because it results in greater modeled burial durations and erosion rates

Cosmogenic radionuclide dating of glacial landforms in the Lahul Himalaya, Northern India: defining the timing of Late Quaternary glaciation

The timing of glaciation in the Lahul Himalaya of northern India was ascertained using the concentrations of cosmogenic Be-10 and Al-26 from boulders on moraines and drumlins, and from glacially polished bedrock surfaces. Five glacial stages were identified: Sonapani I and II, Kulti, Batal and Chandra. Of these, cosmogenic exposure ages were obtained on samples representative of the Batal and Kulti glacial cycles. Stratigraphical relationships indicate that the Sonapani I and II are younger. No age was obtained for the Chandra glacial advance. Batal Glacial Stage deposits are found throughout the valley, indicating the presence of an extensive valley glacial system. During the Kulti Stage, glaciers advanced ca. 10 km beyond their current positions. Moraines produced during the Batal Stage, ca. 12-15.5 ka, are coeval with the Northern Hemisphere Late-glacial Interstadial (Bolling/Allerod). Deglaciation of the Batal Glacial Stage was completed by ca. 12 ka and was followed by the Kulti Glacial Stage during the early Holocene, at ca. 10-11.4 ka. On millennial time-scales, glacier oscillations in the Lahul Himalaya apparently reflect periods of positive mass-balance coincident with times of increased insolation. During these periods the South Asian summer monsoon strengthened and/or extended its influence further north and west, thereby enhancing high-altitude summer snowfall. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.</p

Chinguetti – terrestrial age and pre-atmospheric radius.

Published versio

Clean quartz matters for cosmogenic nuclide analyses: An exploration of the importance of sample purity using the CRONUS-N reference material

Reference materials are key for assessing inter-laboratory variability and measurement quality, and for placing analytical uncertainty bounds on sample analyses. Here, we investigate four years of data resulting from repeated processing of the CRONUS-N reference material for cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al analyses. At University of Vermont, we prepared a CRONUS-N aliquot with most of our sample batches from 2013 to 2017; these reference material samples were then distributed to four different accelerator mass spectrometry facilities, yielding 73 10Be analyses and 58 26Al analyses. We determine CRONUS-N 10Be concentrations of (2.26 ± 0.14) x 105 atoms g−1 (n = 73, mean, 1 SD) and 26Al concentrations of (1.00 ± 0.08) x 106 atoms g−1 (n = 58, mean, 1 SD). We find a reproducibility of 6.3% for 10Be and 7.7% for 26Al (relative standard deviations). We also document highly variable 27Al and Mg concentrations and a 10Be dispersion twice as large as the mean AMS analytic uncertainty. Analyses of the CRONUS-N material with and without density separation demonstrate that non-quartz minerals are present in the material and have a large impact on measured concentrations of 27Al, 10Be, and impurities; these non-quartz minerals represent only a very small portion of the total mass (0.6–0.8%) but have a disproportionally large effect on the resulting data. Our results highlight the importance of completely removing all non-quartz mineral phases from samples prior to Be/Al extraction for the determination of in situ cosmogenic 10Be and 26Al concentrations