10Be dating of North Pacific sediment cores up to 2.5 million years B.P.

The¹⁰Be method of dating of marine sediment cores is applied to five North Pacific cores. Assuming a constant¹⁰Be precipitation rate and varying sedimentation rates with time during the past 2.5 m.y. dating confirms to that obtained from paleomagnetic stratigraphy. The¹⁰Be concentration variations with depth in the cores are primarily due to changes in sediment dilution and do not reflect cosmic ray intensity or global climate variations. The limits of¹⁰Be deposition rate variation in the investigated cores are less than ± 10% for periods of (2–7) × 10⁵ years and less than ±30% for periods of 1 × 10⁵ years. The data set gives a half-life of¹⁰Be is 1.50 × 10⁶ years. The latitudinal effect of¹⁰Be concentrations and¹⁰Be/⁹Be ratios relates to a frequency of particulate matter occurrence (detrital and biological particles) in the oceans and to oceanic circulation.