Brief communication: Tritium concentration and age of firn accumulation in an ice cave of Mount Olympus (Greece)

Georgios Lazaridis; Konstantinos Stamoulis; Despoina Dora; Iraklis Kalogeropoulos; Konstantinos P Trimmis

doi:10.5194/tc-17-883-2023

Brief communication: Tritium concentration and age of firn accumulation in an ice cave of Mount Olympus (Greece)

Georgios Lazaridis^*
, Konstantinos Stamoulis
, Despoina Dora
, Iraklis Kalogeropoulos
, Konstantinos P Trimmis

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article (Academic Journal) › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Firn from an ice cave in the highest mountain of Greece, Mount Olympus, was sampled and analyzed to determine the tritium content in order to estimate rates of accumulation and to date the ice plug. The presence of a sharp raise of tritium content indicating the nuclear testing era was expected to be preserved into ice beds. Tritium concentrations were found to vary from 0.9 to 11 TU. This peak did not appear in the analyzed samples, providing an upper age limit of less than 50 years for the oldest sampled layer. It is suggested that the rate of melting is responsible for the absence of older firn layers.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	883-887
Number of pages	5
Journal	Cryosphere
Volume	17
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-17-883-2023
Publication status	Published - 21 Feb 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are deeply grateful to Sakis Ntavlis and Vasilis Sidiropoulos, cavers of the Hellenic Speleological Society, Department of Northern Greece for their contribution during the field work and sampling. Tanguy Racine and one anonymous referee are thanked for their comments and suggestions, as reviewers, which improved the paper.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Georgios Lazaridis et al.

Keywords

Speleology
Ice Caves
Tritium
firn layers
Cave survey data

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title = "Brief communication: Tritium concentration and age of firn accumulation in an ice cave of Mount Olympus (Greece)",

abstract = "Firn from an ice cave in the highest mountain of Greece, Mount Olympus, was sampled and analyzed to determine the tritium content in order to estimate rates of accumulation and to date the ice plug. The presence of a sharp raise of tritium content indicating the nuclear testing era was expected to be preserved into ice beds. Tritium concentrations were found to vary from 0.9 to 11 TU. This peak did not appear in the analyzed samples, providing an upper age limit of less than 50 years for the oldest sampled layer. It is suggested that the rate of melting is responsible for the absence of older firn layers.",

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AU - Dora, Despoina

AU - Kalogeropoulos, Iraklis

AU - Trimmis, Konstantinos P

N1 - Funding Information: We are deeply grateful to Sakis Ntavlis and Vasilis Sidiropoulos, cavers of the Hellenic Speleological Society, Department of Northern Greece for their contribution during the field work and sampling. Tanguy Racine and one anonymous referee are thanked for their comments and suggestions, as reviewers, which improved the paper. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 Georgios Lazaridis et al.

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N2 - Firn from an ice cave in the highest mountain of Greece, Mount Olympus, was sampled and analyzed to determine the tritium content in order to estimate rates of accumulation and to date the ice plug. The presence of a sharp raise of tritium content indicating the nuclear testing era was expected to be preserved into ice beds. Tritium concentrations were found to vary from 0.9 to 11 TU. This peak did not appear in the analyzed samples, providing an upper age limit of less than 50 years for the oldest sampled layer. It is suggested that the rate of melting is responsible for the absence of older firn layers.

AB - Firn from an ice cave in the highest mountain of Greece, Mount Olympus, was sampled and analyzed to determine the tritium content in order to estimate rates of accumulation and to date the ice plug. The presence of a sharp raise of tritium content indicating the nuclear testing era was expected to be preserved into ice beds. Tritium concentrations were found to vary from 0.9 to 11 TU. This peak did not appear in the analyzed samples, providing an upper age limit of less than 50 years for the oldest sampled layer. It is suggested that the rate of melting is responsible for the absence of older firn layers.

KW - Speleology

KW - Ice Caves

KW - Tritium

KW - firn layers

KW - Cave survey data

U2 - 10.5194/tc-17-883-2023

DO - 10.5194/tc-17-883-2023

M3 - Article (Academic Journal)

SN - 1994-0416

VL - 17

SP - 883

EP - 887

JO - Cryosphere

JF - Cryosphere

IS - 2

ER -

Brief communication: Tritium concentration and age of firn accumulation in an ice cave of Mount Olympus (Greece)

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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