The radiocarbon reservoir age of the eastern Arctic Ocean
Abstract
Radiocarbon (14C) dating is the standard method for obtaining the age of marine sediments of Holocene and late Pleistocene age. For accurate calibrations, however, this tool relies on precise knowledge of the local radiocarbon reservoir age of the surface ocean, i.e. the regional difference (ΔR) from the average global marine calibration dataset. This parameter has become impossible to measure from modern mollusk samples because of 14C contamination from extensive testing of thermo-nuclear bombs in the second half of the twentieth century. The local reservoir age can thus only be calculated from the radiocarbon age of samples collected before AD 1950 or from sediment records containing absolute age markers, derived from e.g. tephrochronology or paleomagnetism. Knowledge of the marine reservoir age in the Arctic Ocean is extremely sparse, and relies on work by only a few studies. No information exists for the Kara Sea or East Siberian Sea, and the Laptev Sea and Chukchi Sea are represented by very few measurements. This study presents new radiocarbon measurements on historical mollusk collections and new reservoir age estimates for the eastern Arctic Ocean.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMOS13D1534P
- Keywords:
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- 4299 General or miscellaneous;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL