An enhanced concentration of 60Fe was found in a deep ocean's crust in 2004 in a layer corresponding to an age of ~2 Myr. The confirmation of this signal in terrestrial archives as supernova-induced and detection of other supernova-produced radionuclides is of great interest. We have identified two suitable marine sediment cores from the South Australian Basin and estimated the intensity of a possible signal of the supernova-produced radionuclides 26Al, 53Mn, 60Fe and the pure r-process element 244Pu in these cores. A finding of these radionuclides in a sediment core might allow to improve the time resolution of the signal and thus to link the signal to a supernova event in the solar vicinity ~2 Myr ago. Furthermore, it gives an insight on nucleosynthesis scenarios in massive stars, the condensation into dust grains and transport mechanisms from the supernova shell into the solar system.
@article{arxiv.1204.4320,
title = {The Search for Supernova-produced Radionuclides in Terrestrial Deep-sea Archives},
author = {Jenny Feige and Anton Wallner and Stephan R. Winkler and Silke Merchel and L. Keith Fifield and Gunther Korschinek and Georg Rugel and Dieter Breitschwerdt},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.4320},
year = {2012}
}