Development a Novel Method to Isolate Fatty Acids for Compound-specific Radiocarbon Dating to Reconstruct West Antarctic Ice Sheet Melting History

Previous reports suggested that radiocarbon dating of solvent-extractable, short-chain (C14, C16, and C18) fatty acids isolated from sediments are useful for reconstructing chronologies of Antarctic margin sediments. Compound-specific radiocarbon dating is potentially applicable as a chronological tool in the Arctic Ocean as well as in the other areas of Southern Ocean where the limitations of existing chronological tool have hindered the progress of palaeoceanographic studies. However, this approach requires technical progresses on the purification of target compounds from complex organic matrices since the methodology is also laborious and time-consuming. We present a novel method to isolate / purify these fatty acids using high- performance liquid chromatography / evaporative light scattering detector system (HPLC / ELSD). This new method is a key for compound-specific radiocarbon dating to become a mainstream of chronological tool in Antarctic margin and other high-latitude ocean sediments.