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

Abstract

Radiocarbon ((14)C) provides a way to date material that contains carbon with an age up to ~50,000 years and is also an important tracer of the global carbon cycle. However, the lack of a comprehensive record reflecting atmospheric (14)C prior to 12.5 thousand years before the present (kyr B.P.) has limited the application of radiocarbon dating of samples from the Last Glacial period. Here, we report (14)C results from Lake Suigetsu, Japan (35°35'N, 135°53'E), which provide a comprehensive record of terrestrial radiocarbon to the present limit of the (14)C method. The time scale we present in this work allows direct comparison of Lake Suigetsu paleoclimatic data with other terrestrial climatic records and gives information on the connection between global atmospheric and regional marine radiocarbon levels.

Assessing influences on speleothem dead carbon variability over the Holocene: Implications for speleothem-based radiocarbon calibration

“…Despite this complication, the agreement between these reservoir corrected marine records and the Lake Suigetsu record is very good to ∼28 ka. Before 28 ka the divergence between records increases (Reimer et al, 2013), as does the variance in the Lake Suigetsu record (Bronk Ramsey et al, 2012), with differences between records on the order of thousands of years, leading to high uncertainty in the atmospheric 14 C record in the earlier intervals.…”

“…The only true non-tree ring record of atmospheric 14 C extending beyond 13.9 ka is a record from Lake Suigetsu, Japan, which is based on macrofossils paired with a varve counting chronology (Kitagawa and van der Plicht, 1998a, 1998b, 2000Staff et al, 2010;Bronk Ramsey et al, 2012) and covers the interval 0-52.8 ka. The Lake Suigetsu record presented by Kitagawa and van der Plicht (1998a, 1998b, 2000 showed significant divergence from other atmospheric radiocarbon reconstructions prior to ∼25 ka, which was found to be due to errors in the calendar chronology because of incomplete core retrieval during sampling (Staff et al, 2010).…”

“…The Lake Suigetsu record presented by Kitagawa and van der Plicht (1998a, 1998b, 2000 showed significant divergence from other atmospheric radiocarbon reconstructions prior to ∼25 ka, which was found to be due to errors in the calendar chronology because of incomplete core retrieval during sampling (Staff et al, 2010). A new set of overlapping cores was taken and a new high-resolution record with an improved chronology has been constructed, though the record displays large scatter in the 14 C ages in the interval >28 ka due to small sample sizes, as well as large uncertainty in the layer-counting age model (Bronk Ramsey et al, 2012). Nonetheless, the Lake Suigetsu 14 C record provides a valuable "backbone" for the atmospheric 14 C record, which is refined by a variety of other 14 C records.…”

Ice-age megafauna in Arctic Alaska: extinction, invasion, survival

“…7). Because 14 C calibration causes distortions in these types of probability-density plots (Williams, 2012), and because the older part of the 14 C-calibration curve is currently being updated with new Lake Suigetsu varve data (Bronk Ramsey et al, 2012), we have postponed making detailed comparisons between these probability-density graphs and global climate events.…”

Dating, synthesis, and interpretation of palaeoclimatic records of the Last Glacial cycle and model-data integration: advances by the INTIMATE (INTegration of Ice-core, MArine and TErrestrial records) COST Action ES0907

“…In addition, it was evident that new i. in the refinement of 14 C age modelling using Bayesian and other statistical approaches (e.g. Blockley et al (2008a); Blockley et al (2007); Blockley et al (2008b);Bronk Ramsey (2008, 2009Bronk Ramsey et al (2012)) in the refinement of the IntCal radiocarbon calibration programme (Reimer et al, 2009;Reimer et al, 2013), particularly in the extension of the dendrochronologically-based section of the calibration curve into the Lateglacial Kaiser et al, 2012), ii. in the development of high-resolution ice-core chronologies, most notably the composite GICC05 timescale based on three separate ice cores and which now underpins the INTIMATE event stratigraphy Rasmussen et al, 2006;Rasmussen et al, in this issue; Rasmussen et al, 2008;Svensson et al, 2008;Vinther et al, 2007), and iii.…”