CH4 AND DELTA-O-18 OF O-2 RECORDS FROM ANTARCTIC AND GREENLAND ICE - A CLUE FOR STRATIGRAPHIC DISTURBANCE IN THE BOTTOM PART OF THE GREENLAND ICE CORE PROJECT AND THE GREENLAND ICE-SHEET PROJECT-2 ICE CORES
J. Chappellaz et al., CH4 AND DELTA-O-18 OF O-2 RECORDS FROM ANTARCTIC AND GREENLAND ICE - A CLUE FOR STRATIGRAPHIC DISTURBANCE IN THE BOTTOM PART OF THE GREENLAND ICE CORE PROJECT AND THE GREENLAND ICE-SHEET PROJECT-2 ICE CORES, J GEO RES-O, 102(C12), 1997, pp. 26547-26557
The suggestion of climatic instability during the last interglacial pe
riod (Eem), based on the bottom 10% of the Greenland Ice core Project
(GRIP) isotopic profile, has been questioned because the bottom record
from the neighboring Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 (GISP2) core (28 k
m away) is strikingly different over the same interval and because rec
ords of the delta(18)O of atmospheric O-2 from both cores showed unexp
ected rapid fluctuations. Here we present detailed methane records fro
m the Vostok (Antarctica), GRIP, and GISP2 cores over the relevant int
ervals. The GRIP and GISP2 data show rapid and large changes in methan
e concentration, which are correlative with variations of the delta(18
)O of the ice, while the Vostok record shows no such variations. This
discrepancy reinforces the suggestion that the bottom sections of the
Greenland records are disturbed. By combining the methane data with me
asurements of delta(18)O of O-2 in the same samples, we attempt to con
strain the nature of the stratigraphic disturbance and the age of the
analyzed ice samples. Our results suggest that ice layers from part of
the last interglacial period exist in the lower section of both ice c
ores and that some of the apparent climate instabilities in the GRIP c
ore would be the result of a mixture of ice from the last interglacial
with ice from the beginning of the last glaciation or from the penult
imate glaciation.