Scientists discovered a strange 10-million-year-old signal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean

An international team of researchers has made an amazing discovery - an unexpected spike in beryllium-10 (¹⁰Be) levels was found in Pacific Ocean seafloor samples. This discovery could be a real breakthrough in measuring our planet's geological past.

Scientists claim that this discovery can serve as a global time marker, significantly improving the process of synchronizing geological records spanning millions of years. This means the possibility of more accurate dating of archaeological findings, including ancient bones and tree remains.

Physicist Dominik Koll from the Helmholtz Center Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) explains: "The radiocarbon method is limited to dating samples no older than 50,000 years. For older samples, it is necessary to use other isotopes, such as cosmogenic beryllium-10".

Beryllium-10 is a rare radioactive isotope formed when cosmic rays interact with oxygen and nitrogen in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Its half-life is 1.4 million years, which allows researchers to study events that occurred 10 million years ago.

The research team led by Koll analyzed ferromanganese crusts raised from multi-kilometer depths of the Pacific Ocean. The results exceeded all expectations - the concentration of ¹⁰Be in samples about 10 million years old was almost twice as high as expected.