Isotope record | geology | Britannica (original) (raw)
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use in Pleistocene Epoch studies
In Pleistocene Epoch: Marine oxygen isotope record …the ratio of two oxygen isotopes, oxygen-16 (16O) and oxygen-18 (18O), which is determined on calcium carbonate from shells of microfossils that accumulated year by year on the seafloor. The ratio depends on two factors, the temperature and the isotopic composition of the seawater from which the organism secreted its… Read More
In Pleistocene Epoch: Cause of the climatic changes and glaciations …inferred from the marine oxygen isotope record were milestones in testing the astronomical theory. Early spectral analysis of the oxygen isotope record of cores from the deep ocean showed frequencies of climatic variation at essentially the same frequencies as the orbital cycles—that is to say, at 100,000 years, 43,000 years,… Read More
