Raimund Muscheler
Professor
Bulk sediment 14C dating in an estuarine environment: : How accurate can it be?
Författare
Summary, in English
Abstract Due to a lack of marine macrofossils in many sediment cores from the estuarine Baltic Sea, researchers are often forced to carry out 14C determinations on bulk sediment samples. However, ambiguity surrounding the carbon source pathways that contribute to bulk sediment formation introduces a large uncertainty into 14C geochronologies based on such samples, and such uncertainty may not have been fully considered in previous Baltic Sea studies. We quantify this uncertainty by analyzing bulk sediment 14C determinations carried out on densely spaced intervals in independently dated late-Holocene sediment sequences from two central Baltic Sea cores. Our results show a difference of ~600?14C?yr in median bulk sediment reservoir age, or R(t)bulk, between the two core locations (~1200?14C?yr for one core, ~620?14C?yr for the other), indicating large spatial variation. Furthermore, we also find large downcore (i.e., temporal) R(t)bulk variation of at least ~200?14C?yr for both cores. We also find a difference of 585?14C?yr between two samples taken from the same core depth. We propose that studies using bulk sediment 14C dating in large brackish water bodies should take such spatiotemporal variation in R(t)bulk into account when assessing uncertainties, thus leading to a larger, but more accurate, calibrated age range.
Avdelning/ar
- Kvartärgeologi
- MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system
Publiceringsår
2017-02-01
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
123-131
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Paleoceanography
Volym
32
Issue
2
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Ämne
- Geology
- Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
- Oceanography, Hydrology, Water Resources
Nyckelord
- radiocarbon
- bulk sediment
- reservoir age
- Baltic Sea
- estuary
- 14C
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0883-8305