isotope

As It Happens6:35How scientists tracked the 1,000 km journey of a woolly mammoth using its tuskWith nothing more than a tusk, researchers were able to track the 1,000 kilometre journey of a woolly mammoth that lived 14,000 years ago. "The fact that we can actually regenerate her movement, her place along a landscape … all comes from a few remains at this site gives us insight into behaviour of an animal that once existed and lived with ancestors of the first people here in Canada," Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary…

By U.S. Department of Energy January 11, 2024FRIB, a pioneering nuclear research facility at Michigan State University, has significantly advanced our understanding of atomic nuclei by producing over 210 rare isotopes since its inception in 2022. Its state-of-the-art equipment allows for comprehensive experiments in nuclear physics, contributing to global scientific collaboration and innovation. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.comDepartment of Energy user facility helps probe questions from changes in the…

Life portrait of the Maidanetske mega-settlement. Credit: Susanne Beyer, Kiel University Nutrition in Trypillia mega-sites is currently the focus of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1266 at Kiel University (CAU). In the forest steppe northwest of the Black Sea—today the territory of the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine—mega-sites of the Trypillia societies emerged about 6,000 years ago on areas of up to 320 hectares in…

Gkuthaarn and Kukatj rangers reburied the remains in the Normanton Aboriginal Cemetery in 2015. Credit: Shaun Adams et al In 2015, Gkuthaarn and Kukatj community members of Queensland's Gulf Country invited us to excavate, analyze, and rebury the skeletal remains of eight young Indigenous people who died near the town of Normanton in the late 1800s. …

A compilation of (a) Δ199Hg and (b) Δ200Hg for Paleozoic sediments at the stage level. Credit: IGCAS The colonization and expansion of plants on land represent a defining landmark for the path of life on Earth. Terrestrial colonization has been attributed to a series of major innovations in plant body plans, anatomy and biochemistry that transformed global biogeochemical cycles and climates.…

Plant sampling locations in this study and the geological map of Angola modified after Garzanti et al. (2018) and Dinis et al. (2017) (CB: Congo Basin; KB: Cuanza Basin; BB: Benguela Basin; NB: Namibe Basin). Credit: Journal of Archaeological Science (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2023.105775 Archaeologists at UC Santa Cruz used predictive modeling to map strontium isotope ratios across all of modern-day Angola, a region in…

Bathymetric map of the northern East Pacific Rise (EPR) and the vicinity and the sampling locations. Credit: IOCAS Zinc (Zn) isotope systematics is a useful tool to study planetary evolution and trace carbon cycling in the Earth's mantle. However, zinc isotope data for mid-ocean ridge basalts (MORB), the most widespread magmatic rocks on Earth, are scarce. The possible effects of MORB differentiation and mantle compositional…

Topographic map of China with Sichuan Basin highlighted. Credit: Uwe Dedering/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA In sedimentary basins, the evolution of hydrocarbon including oil/gas generation, migration, and accumulation, as well as reservoir destruction, is often controlled by regional tectonic activities. The key to understanding the…

A meteorite thin section under a microscope. Different colors represent different minerals, because light travels through them in different ways. The round mineral aggregates are chondrules, which are a major component in primitive meteorites. Credit: Nicole Xike NieNew work reveals Earth’s potassium arrived by meteoritic delivery service.Earth’s potassium arrived by meteoritic delivery service finds new research led by Carnegie’s Nicole Nie and Da Wang.  Their work, published on January 26 in the journal Science, shows…

SOFIA observations at 13 to 14 km above the surface show the column densities of oxygen lines of 16O and the heavier isotope 18O which were detected in absorption against the moon in the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere. Credit: Compilation: H. Wiesemeyer, photo of atmosphere (NASA), SOFIA (S. Guisard & NIESYTO design), atomic nuclei (R. Simmon, NASA) A study of the upper atmosphere's composition has successfully…