Mysterious Pacific Ocean Anomaly Sparks Scientific Interest as researchers detect a massive accumulation of radioactive beryllium-10 deep beneath the surface, potentially dating back to shifts in ocean currents or cosmic rays ten million years ago.
Scientists Detect Huge Radioactive ‘Anomaly’ Under Pacific Ocean
Researchers have made an unexpected discovery of a massive accumulation of the radioactive isotope beryllium-10 deep beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The team believes that this ‘anomaly‘ dates back to shifts in ocean currents or cosmic rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere approximately ten million years ago.
The Pacific Ocean is home to various anomalies, including the 'Blob', a large patch of warm water that affected marine life in 2013-2014.
Other anomalies include ocean acidification and changes in sea level due to climate change.
The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) influences temperature fluctuations in the region.
Research suggests that these anomalies are linked to global warming, affecting marine ecosystems and potentially leading to more frequent extreme weather events.
Cosmic Rays and Radioactivity
Beryllium-10 is continuously produced by oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the Earth’s upper atmosphere interacting with high-energy protons, which travel through the universe at nearly the speed of light. This process creates a radioactive isotope that can be used to date archaeological and geological samples.
A New Time Marker for Marine Archives
The team hopes their discovery could serve as an independent time marker for marine archives, allowing scientists to get a better sense of how the planet’s crust has evolved over millions of years. By using beryllium-10, researchers can look much further back in time than with radiocarbon dating, which is limited to samples no more than 50,000 years old.
The Anomaly and Its Causes
The team examined geological samples taken from the Pacific Ocean‘s bed miles below the surface and found almost twice as much boron-10 isotope as they had anticipated. They suggest that there could have been a ‘grand reorganization‘ of ocean currents or a powerful celestial event, such as a near-Earth supernova, that temporarily intensified cosmic radiation ten million years ago.
Future Research
The researchers plan to analyze more samples in the future and hope that other research groups will do the same. If similar discoveries are made in other oceans, it would suggest that the anomaly was a global phenomenon, supporting the astrophysical hypothesis of its cause.
