Extraterrestrial He-3 as a Constant-Flux Prox for Paleoceanographic Studies

每年有超过40，000吨的行星际尘埃颗粒落在地球表面。 那些小于30微米的粒子在很大程度上保留了它们的外星同位素特征。 在赤道太平洋中部，地球表面的一个有限的地理区域，由标准化到钍-230确定的地外氦通量在过去的20万年中一直相对恒定。 在这项研究中，来自拉蒙特-多尔蒂地质观测站和杜兰大学的研究人员将对世界海洋沉积物中He-3供应的空间和时间变化进行彻底调查。 还将探讨地外He-3作为恒定通量代用品的其他应用和局限性。

More than 40,000 tons of interplanetary dust particles fall to the Earth's surface each year. Those particles less than 30 micrometers in size retain to a large extent their extraterrestrial isotopic signature. In the central equatorial Pacific Ocean, a limited geographic region of the earth's surface, the flux of extraterrestrial helium, determined by normalization to thorium-230, has been relatively constant through the past 200 thousand years. In this research, investigators from the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory and Tulane University will carry out a thorough investigation of the apatial and temporal variability of the He-3 supply to the sediments throughout the world ocean. Other applications and limitations of extraterrestrial He-3 as a constant-flux proxy will also be explored.