isotope geochemistry
Elemental variant study
Isotope geochemistry is the study of how different isotopes of elements distribute themselves in geological and environmental systems.
Scientists use isotope ratios to trace processes: carbon isotopes reveal ancient climates, oxygen isotopes in ice cores reconstruct temperature histories, and radioactive isotopes date rocks and fossils.
Isotope geochemistry helped establish the age of the Earth at 4.5 billion years.
- geochronologyStudy of geological ages
- biogeochemistryStudy of life-driven elemental cycles
- fractionationSeparating mixture into components
- ice core analysisStudying drilled glacier samples
- provenance studiesResearch into objects' origins
paleoclimatology · mass spectrometry · half-life · petrology · radiometric dating · carbon isotopes · SIMS · oxygen-18 · noble gas · carbon-14 · tectonics · crust · groundwater · tracer · sediment · zircon · decay · dating
- geochemistrybiogeochemistry, trace element, trace elements, isotopes, chemical weathering
- isotope hydrologytritium, deuterium, oxygen-18, oxygen-16, carbon-14
- isotope scienceradioisotopes, carbon-14, carbon-13, oxygen-18, nitrogen-15