Abstract
Apatite fission-track (AFT) data from samples collected from the Exxon Alaska State C-1 well located along the northern coastline of Alaska, indicate cooling of the order of ~15–20°C occurred during the Miocene at some time between 20 and 10 Ma. There are three possible explanations for the recorded cooling: 1) a decrease in the geothermal gradient, 2) erosion, or 3) sub-surface cooling in response to a long-term decrease in the paleo-mean annual surface temperature. The first option is inconsistent with the fission-track and vitrinite reflectance data from the well. The second option is unlikely, since limited burial history analyses and palynology data from wells located in the region do not record any erosion during the Oligocene or Miocene. The third option seems most likely since a major climatic change occurred across the North Slope of Alaska during the late Cenozoic decreasing the mean annual surface temperature by between 10° and 20°C, resulting in subsurface cooling of a similar magnitude. These results indicate that: 1) subsurface AFT data can be used to determine the timing of cooling and/or heating which occurs in response to large magnitude (>~10°C) changes in long-term mean surface temperature; 2) the subsurface effects of long-term climatic changes must be taken into consideration when using AFT data to estimate denudation; and 3) the AFT data from the C-1 well place new constraints on the initial timing of the establishment of long-term arctic conditions in northern Alaska.
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O’Sullivan, P.B., Brown, R.W. (1998). Effects of Surface Cooling on Apatite Fission-Track Data: Evidence for Miocene Climatic Change, North Slope, Alaska. In: van den Haute, P., de Corte, F. (eds) Advances in Fission-Track Geochronology. Solid Earth Sciences Library, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9133-1_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9133-1_16
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