Ambergris,这是一种源自抹香鲸的共产动物,很少被发现,但是几个世纪以来,作为世界各地海滩上的喷气式飞机。没有可靠的数据表明这些样本可能在海上停留了多长时间,未经证实的说法表明可能是几十年。这里,我们获得了四十多个水星样本,许多人在已知日期收集,来自全球各地最知名的海滩地点。这种经过验证的水兵龙涎香清单是前所未有的。通过诸如气相色谱-质谱(GC-MS)的分析方法表征每个样品。然后,我们通过描述良好的加速器-MS技术确定了一些样品的放射性碳年龄。令人惊讶的是,一些喷气式飞机的样本已经在环境中保存了大约一千年。
Ambergris, which is a coprolith originating from the sperm whale, has been found only rarely, but for centuries, as
jetsam on beaches all over the world. There are no reliable data indicating how long such samples may have remained at sea, with unsubstantiated accounts suggesting maybe decades. Here, we obtained over forty
jetsam samples, many collected on known dates, from mostly known beach locations across the globe. Such an inventory of verified
jetsam ambergris is unprecedented. Each sample was characterised by analytical methods such as gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). We then determined the radiocarbon ages of some of the samples by well-described accelerator-MS techniques. Surprisingly, some samples of
jetsam have remained in the environment for about a thousand years.