Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 8 May 1998:
Vol. 280. no. 5365, pp. 874 - 876
DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5365.874
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

A 100,000-Year Periodicity in the Accretion Rate of Interplanetary Dust

Stephen J. Kortenkamp, * Stanley F. Dermott

Numerical modeling of the orbital evolution of interplanetary dust particles revealed that, over the past 1.2 million years, the rate of accretion of dust by Earth has varied by a factor of 2 to 3. These variations display a 100,000-year periodicity and are anticorrelated with Earth's changing orbital eccentricity. Extraterrestrial helium-3 concentrations in a deep-sea sediment core display a similar periodicity but are 50,000 years out of phase with the predicted variations. Also, because collisions between large bodies in the asteroid belt are inevitable, it is expected that large-amplitude stochastic variations on 107- to 108-year time scales would be superimposed on the 105-year periodic variations.

S. J. Kortenkamp, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington, DC 20015, USA. E-mail: kortenka{at}dtm.ciw.edu
S. F. Dermott, Department of Astronomy, University of Florida, 211 Space Sciences Building, Gainesville, FL 32611-2055, USA. E-mail: dermott{at}astro.ufl.edu
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Mid-Pleistocene revolution and the 'eccentricity myth'.
M. A. Maslin and A. J. Ridgwell (2005)
Geological Society, London, Special Publications 247, 19-34
   Abstract »    PDF »
A Short Duration of the Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary Event: Evidence from Extraterrestrial Helium-3.
S. Mukhopadhyay, K. A. Farley, and A. Montanari (2001)
Science 291, 1952-1955
   Abstract »    Full Text »
Northern Hemisphere Ice-Sheet Influences on Global Climate Change.
P. U. Clark, R. B. Alley, and D. Pollard (1999)
Science 286, 1104-1111
   Abstract »    Full Text »
Sudden climate transitions during the Quaternary.
J. Adams, M. Maslin, and E. Thomas (1999)
Progress in Physical Geography 23, 1-36
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)