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Published January 1978 | public
Journal Article

Hydrogen isotope exchange between clay minerals and sea water

Abstract

The D/H ratios of separated size fractions of clay minerals in two deep sea sediments taken from depths of 30 and 1100cm in a North Pacific Ocean core were measured to investigate the extent of hydrogen isotope exchange between detrital clay minerals and sea water. The D/H ratio of each size fraction of the shallower sample was compared with that of the corresponding size fraction of the deeper sample. No differences were detected between D/H ratios of corresponding size fractions from the two levels in the core except for the <0.1μm size fraction, which makes up only 5% of the sample. Even in this size fraction only about 8–28% D/H exchange is apparent. This is interpreted as indicating that no significant hydrogen isotope exchange between clay minerals and sea water has occurred during the past 2–3 Myr. Therefore information concerning the provenance and mode of formation of detrital clay minerals can be obtained from the D/H ratios of deep sea sediments younger than 2–3 Myr.

Additional Information

© 1978 Pergamon Press. Received 21 February 1917; accepted in revised form 19 August 1977. We thank Dr. SAMUEL M. SAVIN for his encouragement, helpful discussion and comments on the manuscript, Dr. JOHN HOWER and Dr. JANET HOFFMAN for many useful discussions concerning clay mineralogy, Drs. ERIC V. ESLINGER, PAUL KNAUTH and HUGH P. TAYLOR for their careful reading of the manuscript and their constructive criticism, Mr KEN COLES and Dr. GORDON NORD for assistance in sample analysis. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography provided the samples. Financial support was provided by NSF Grant No. DES71-00558 A03 (to S. Epstein), GA-4016 and GA-16827 (to S. Savin).

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 25, 2023