Thermometer physical data

Reconstruction of faunal records in deep-sea sediments and oxygen isotope measurements have been yielding useful information of the ocean s paleotemperature. However, the lack of these tools in the case of continents has hampered the estimation of paleotemperature in continents. The latter estimate has mainly been made on somehow indirect approach such as pollen data, periglacial feature, and soil carbonate, all of which suffer from considerable uncertainty stemming from the assumption that must be made to convert the observation to temperature. The advantage of the noble gas thermometer, as compared to the other paleotemperature methods, is that it is based on the relatively simple physical principle that directly relates noble gas concentration to the ambient temperature (see Stute Schlosser, 1993, for a recent review of the noble gas paleotemperature method). However, in actual practice, we need some cautions. 

Platinum resistance thermometers are currently used by the NIST for calibration verification of other thermometer types for the temperature range 13.8 to 904 K. In addition, they are one of the easiest types of thermometers to interface with a computer for data input. On the other hand, platinum resistance thermometers are very expensive, extremely sensitive to physical changes and shock, have a slow response time, and therefore can take a long time to equilibrate to a given temperature. Thus, resistance thermometers are often used only for calibration purposes in many labs. 

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