Analytical Chemistry Commons^™

Improving Thorium-230 Determination In Marine Sediment, Katherine Mateos

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Our oceans are intimately related to the climate of our planet. Paleoceanographic approaches aim to study oceans through geologic time to improve models of future climate. Radioisotopes provide us with chemical tracers that help us understand change through time. The uraniumseries decay chain contains thorium-230, a decay product of uranium-234. This isotope is useful to paleoceanographers in its disequilibrium to its parent isotope and in determining the flux of sediment falling to the ocean floor. In order to use 230Th to study oceans, we must be able to accurately measure the amount of thorium in sediment samples. Thorium is found …