Oxygen isotope ratio cycle likely driven by the Lomagundi carbon isotope excursion. Oxygen isotope ratio cycle Oxygen isotope ratio cycles are cyclical variations in the ratio of the abundance of oxygen with an atomic mass of 18 to the abundance of oxygen with an atomic mass of 16 present in some substances, such as polar ice or calcite in ocean core samples, measured with the isotope fractionation. The ratio is linked to water temperature of ancient oceans, which in turn reflects ancient climates. Cycles in the ratio mirror climate changes in geologic history. Oxygen (chemical symbol O) has three naturally occurring isotopes: O, O,
Atomic mass or standard atomic weight, by several mass units. Atomic masses expressed in unified atomic mass units (i.e. relative isotopic masses) are always close to whole-number values, but never (except in the case of carbon-12) exactly a whole number, for two reasons: The ratio of atomic mass to mass number (number of nucleons) varies from about 0.99884 for Fe to 1.00782505 for H. Any mass defect due to nuclear binding energy is experimentally a small fraction (less than 1%) of the mass of equal number of free nucleons. When compared to the average mass per nucleon in carbon-12, which is moderately