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Oxygen Isotopes

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Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

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Natural occurrence

Oxygen has three stable isotopes with atomic mass numbers of 16, 17, and 18 (16O, 17O and 18O), which occur naturally in relative proportions of 99.76%, 0.04%, and 0.2%, respectively. Because 17O and 18O fractionate (to a first order) proportionally with respect to 16O, and because of the very small abundance of 17O, the isotopic ratio 18O/16O (∼1/500) is most commonly measured in water (e.g., groundwater, ice), carbonate sediments (CaCO3), oxygen gas (O2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and organic matter, in which the 18O/16O ratio varies by more than 100‰.

The 18O/16O ratio of a sample is measured by mass spectrometry on CO2 or O2. The isotopic composition is usually expressed relative to a standard (which depends on the measured material) and expressed with the δ notation:

$$\delta ^{18} {\rm O} = \left[ {{(^{18} {\rm O}/^{16} {\rm O})_{{\rm Sample}}} \over {(^{18} {\rm O}/^{16} {\rm O})_{{\rm Standard}} }}{ - 1} \right] (\times 1,\!000,{\rm per\ mil)}$$
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Authors
  1. Gilles Delaygue
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Columbia University, New York, USA

    Vivien Gornitz

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Delaygue, G. (2009). Oxygen Isotopes. In: Gornitz, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4411-3_163

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