Uranium series, ice

Abstract

The validity of dating ice with U-series model ages has been demonstrated, but with substantial uncertainty derived from difficulties in measuring surface area and U distribution. Complementary dating methods are needed to corroborate this approach in permafrost and ice core studies. Nevertheless, field and stratigraphic evidence suggests that ground ice can be preserved for hundreds of thousands of years despite large changes in climate over that time span (Froese et al., 2008; Reyes et al., 2010). Consequently, it is likely that application of U-series age models for ice in conjunction with other dating tools (radiocarbon, luminescence, amino-acid racemi-zation) will continue to be investigated in cryosphere environments. Moreover, chronological constraint of ice-preserved paleoecological histories continues to be an important area of climate-change investigation and may benefit from age evaluation based on U-series isotopes in ice cores.