Results from oceanic dual gas tracer releases

Results from oceanic dual gas tracer releases 

Noble gases have been firmly established as routine tools in studies of a variety of oceanographic fields. Since the first pioneering measurements of noble gases in the ocean and its sedimentary environment, rich data sets, some of them with global coverage at high spatial resolution, were collected and evaluated. In many cases such as the application of tritium/ He and mantle He to ocean circulation, detailed descriptions of 

Future developments in Accelerator Mass Spectrometry might enable development of Ar to a routine tool in oceanography. If the technical difficulties in measuring this noble gas isotope on small water samples can be mastered, it would offer a unique tool for studies of ocean circulation on time scales ranging from decades to the order of one thousand years, a good match for mean residence times of intermediate and deep waters (e.g., Loosli 1989). 

Overall, during the past roughly four decades noble gases have significantly contributed to the field of oceanography. We anticipate that future studies will provide further extensive data sets that will form the foundation for improvement in our knowledge of a wide variety of topics. These topics reach from modem circulation of the ocean to understanding processes that shaped the oceanic environment over many millions of years. 

This chapter was written with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant OCE 9820130) and the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Leopoldina Fellowship to G. Winckler). Comments by W. Aeschbach-Hertig and an anonymous reviewer considerably improved the manuscript. This is L-DEO contribution 

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