Aquatic noble gas geochemistry

Eawag research

When water is in contact with the atmosphere, some of the atmospheric noble gases are dissolved in the water, and the amounts of dissolved gases depend on the temperature. The water may then enter a groundwater system, where it is separated from the atmosphere. Some groundwater systems contain water which was separated from the atmosphere at different times, and hence form a "climate archive". Noble gas analyses in groundwater allow us therefore to determine the mean temperature at the Earth's surface over the past several ten thousand years. We are also exploring the use of other climate archives, such as waters in lake sediments and in fluid inclusions in dripstones.