Balance of90Sr over Antarctica: Existence of a protected area

International audienceThe study of firn cores from Terre Adélie and from stations located along the axis Mirny-Vostok made possible new calculations of90Sr accumulation in Antarctica, i.e. 25.103 Ci as of January 1964. Despite the scarcity of sampling stations, an inhomogeneous geographical distribution may be observed which shows the existence of a low contamination area. Moreover, a linear relationship seems to exist in many cores between90Sr and water accumulations. Thus it could be possible to extrapolate some geochemical measurements made in Antarctica to the rest of the Southern Hemisphere