Modul D
Beryllium-10 as a tracer of solar and geomagnetic variability and erosion rate
10Be as well as 14C and 36Cl provide a unique tool to reconstruct the history of solar variability and changes in the geomagnetic field intensity. So far, most work in this field was done on polar ice cores and marine sediments. While marine sediment records are often limited by low temporal resolution, the annual layer thickness in ice cores decreases with increasing depth due to flow characteristics of ice sheets limiting the application to ~200 kyr. The sediments of Lake Van offer the possibility to extend both the temporal range and temporal resolution considerably. However, 10Be in continental sediments does not only reflect the atmospheric production rate of cosmogenic radionuclides. Erosion in the catchment area partly masks the production signal and depending on the role of erosion, emphasis will be on the reconstruction of the production and/or the erosion history. Moreover, if the production signal will be available, it can be used to improve the dating by synchronizing the lake Van record with the polar ice cores.