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Science 15 August 1997:
Vol. 277. no. 5328, pp. 908 - 909
DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5328.908
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Perspectives

PALEOCEANOGRAPHY:
Isotopic Tracers of Past Ocean Circulation: Turning Lead to Gold

Francis Albarède

The ocean is like a giant conveyor belt: Warm water from the Gulf Stream cools in the Atlantic Ocean and sinks to join deep water flowing along Antarctica and into the Pacific, where it warms and returns to the Atlantic as surface water. In his Perspective, Albarède discusses results in the same issue by Christensen et al. in which laser mass spectrometry was used to study ancient ocean circulation. The authors measured the concentrations of lead isotopes in material from the ocean floor and were able to view the isotope record over 50 million years.

The author is at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 69364 Lyon Cedex, France. E-mail: albarede{at}ens-lyon.fr

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