Patterson, Clair

Patterson, Clair C. 1971. Native copper, silver, and gold... 

Patterson, Clair C. 1972. Silver stocks and losses in ancient... 

Very careful analysis of trace elements can have a major effect on human life. A notable example can be seen in the career of Clair Patterson (1922-1995) (memoir by Flagel 1996), who made it his life s work to assess the origins and concentrations of lead in the atmosphere and in human bodies minute quantities had to be measured and contaminant lead from unexpected sources had to be identified in his analyses, leading to techniques of clean analysis . A direct consequence of Patterson s scrupulous work was a worldwide policy shift banning lead in gasoline and manufactured products. 

Today, the scientific community can identify tiny trace amounts of chemicals in the environment. A quarter-century after Wallace Carothers introduced science-based industrial research to the United States, Clair Patterson adapted techniques developed for determining the age of the Earth to identify microtraces of global pollutants. Today scientists can analyze industrial contaminants in the parts per billion in 1991 when a university scientist discovered in the atmosphere a harmful, low-level contaminant produced by the manufacture of nylon, industry volunteered within weeks to change production methods. 

CHAPTER 9 Lead-Free Gasoline and Clair C. Patterson... 

Claude F. Boutron and Clair C. Patterson. Lead Concentration Changes in Antarctic Ice during the Wisconsin/Holocene Transition. Nature. 323 (Sept. 18, 1986) 222-225. 

Samuel Epstein. Introduction of Clair C. Patterson for the V. M. Goldschmidt Medal 1980. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 45 (Aug. 1981) 1383-1397. Source for Boucot s solicitation of manuscript. 

Clair Patterson s Influence on Environmental Research. Environmental... 

Herbert L. Needleman. Clair Patterson and Robert Kehoe Two Views of Lead Toxicity. Environmental Research. 78 (Aug. 1998) 79-85. A good summary of Patterson versus Kehoe. 

Amy Ng and Clair Patterson. Natural Concentrations of Lead in Ancient Arctic and Antarctic Ice. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 45 (Nov. 1981) 2109-2121. 

Clair C. Patterson, T. J. Chow, and M. Murozumi. The Possibility of Measuring Variations in the Intensity of Worldwide Lead Smelting during Medieval and Ancient Times Using Lead Aerosol Deposits in Polar Snow Strata. In Scientific Methods in Medieval Archaeology. Rainer Berger, ed. Berkeley University of California Press, 1970, pp. 339-350. 

Dorothy M. Settle and Clair C. Patterson. Lead in Albacore Guide to Lead Pollution in Americans. Science. 207 (Mar. 14, 1980) 1167-1176. 

Robert P. Sharp. Vignettes of Clair Patterson. Unpublished manuscript. 

George R. Tilton. Clair Cameron Patterson, June 2, 1922 - December 5,1995. Bio graphical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences. 74 (1998) 166-187. Washington, DC, National Academy Press, 1998. Source for Chicago lab pollution importance of Ph.D. thesis wildman, and trying situation. ... 

Fitzgerald, W.F. 1999. Clean Hands Clair Patterson s Crusade Against Environmental Lead Contamination. Nova Science, 119-137. 

Hong, Sungmin, Jean-Pierre Candelone, Clair C. Patterson, and Claude F. Boutron. Greenland Ice Evidence of Hemispheric head Pollution Two Millennia Ago by Greek and Roman Civilizations. Science 265 (September 23, 1994) 1,841-1,843. The researchers analyzed an ice core from Greenland that covered a period from 3,000 to 500 years ago and found the concentration of lead was four times higher than natural conditions during the Roman era. 

In 1946, Arthur Holmes and Fredrich Houtermans built on previous work to independently develop a general model for isotopic evolution of lead in the Earth. The Holmes-Houtermans common-lead method enabled determination of the ages of common leads that have had single-stage histories and was used by Clair Patterson in the mid-1950s to determine the age of the Earth. 

Equation (8.47), with t = 0 and the composition of lead from meteoritic troilite used for the initial isotopic ratio of lead, was used by Clair Patterson (1955,1956) to determine the age of the Earth. In the 1950s, the largest uncertainty in determining the age of the Earth was the composition of primordial lead. In 1953, Patterson solved this problem by using state-of-the-art analytical techniques to measure the composition of lead from troilite (FeS) in iron meteorites. Troilite has an extremely low U/Pb ratio because uranium was separated from the lead in troilite at near the time of solar-system formation. Patterson (1955) then measured the composition of lead from stony meteorites. In 1956, he demonstrated that the data from stony meteorites, iron meteorites, and terrestrial oceanic sediments all fell on the same isochron (Fig. 8.20). He interpreted the isochron age (4.55+0.07 Ga) as the age of the Earth and of the meteorites. The value for the age of the Earth has remained essentially unchanged since Patterson s determination, although the age of the solar system has been pushed back by —20 Myr. 

The U-Pb system has been a chronometer of choice for the Earth s age since the pioneering study of Clair Patterson in 1956, as discussed in Chapter 8. Virtually all U-Pb model ages of the Earth (reviewed by Allegre et al., 1995) are younger than the ages of chondritic and achondritic meteorites. The oldest Pb-Pb age, based on ancient terrestrial... 

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