A Complete Terrestrial Radiocarbon Record for 11.2 to 52.8 kyr B.P.

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1226660
• Publication Date: 2012-10-19T00:40:31Z
• Authors: Christopher Bronk...; Richard A. Staff; Charlotte L. Bryant; Fiona Brock; Hiroyuki Kitagawa; Johannes van der ...; Gordon Schlolaut; Michael H. Marshall; Achim Brauer; Henry F. Lamb; Rebecca L. Payne; Pavel E. Tarasov; Tsuyoshi Haraguchi; Katsuya Gotanda; Hitoshi Yonenobu; Yusuke Yokoyama; Ryuji Tada; Takeshi Nakagawa
• Keywords: Geologic Sediments; Atmosphere; Fossils; C-14 CALIBRATION; Radiometric Dating; 550 - Earth sciences; CAL BP; 01 natural sciences; Trees; Lakes; ICE CORES; 13. Climate action; YR BP; CHRONOLOGY; Calibration; Carbon Radioisotopes; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

Dating Carbon

Radiocarbon dating is the best way to determine the age of samples that contain carbon and that are younger than ∼50,000 years, the limit of precision for the method. There are several factors that complicate such age determinations, however, some of the most important of which include variability of the 14 C production in the atmosphere (which affects organic samples whose radiocarbon inventories are derived from atmospheric CO 2 ), surface ocean reservoir effects (which affect marine samples that acquire their radiocarbon signatures from seawater), and variable dead carbon fraction effects (which affect speleothems that derive their carbon from groundwaters).

Bronk Ramsey et al.

(p. 370 ; see the Perspective by

Reimer

) avoid the need to make such assumptions, reporting the 14 C results of sediments from Lake Suigetsu, Japan. Analysis of terrestrial plant macrofossils in annually layered datable sediments yielded a direct record of atmospheric radiocarbon for the entire measurable interval up to 52.8 thousand years ago.