Short Wave What Space Dust Reveals About Earth's Ice Age
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Nov 11, 2025 
In this insightful discussion, geochemist Frankie Pavia from the University of Washington sheds light on his groundbreaking research using cosmic dust to uncover Arctic climate history. He explains how debris from asteroids and comets can reveal conditions from the last ice age, including a striking 300% deficit in cosmic dust, indicating extensive ice cover. Pavia also explores factors that contributed to the melting of Arctic ice, linking past data to future climate predictions and emphasizing the importance of understanding these changes.
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Cosmic Dust As A Climate Archive
- Cosmic dust accumulates on Earth's surface at a roughly constant rate over long timescales and carries a distinct helium fingerprint from the solar wind.
- Measuring that helium in seafloor sediments reveals past variations in how much dust reached the ocean floor, which links to past sea ice coverage.
Pulling Mud Tubes From The Seafloor
- Researchers collect seafloor mud by ramming long tubes into the seafloor to retrieve layered sediment cores.
- Each centimeter slice of those cores records time-ordered chemical signatures used to reconstruct past environments.
Helium Fingerprints Reveal Dust Flux
- Tiny cosmic dust grains retain a solar-wind produced helium fingerprint that researchers can measure in sediment layers.
- That fingerprint lets scientists quantify past dust fluxes and infer changes in processes like sea-ice interception.