0000000000434569
AUTHOR
Pieter Meiert Grootes
Possible influence of Zoophycos bioturbation on radiocarbon dating and environmental interpretation
Abstract In paleoenvironmental studies of marine sediments bioturbation is often neglected and/or only treated as a diffusion-like process affecting only the uppermost sediment with decreasing intensity with depth. Deep dwelling animals, like the Zoophycos producing animal, however, affect the sediment composition by transporting material over vertical distances of up to 1 m below the seafloor. In Arabian Sea sediment cores 70KL, 64KL and 57KL a significant downward transport of particles by Zoophycos can be observed. Within the Zoophycos burrows the faunal composition of both planktonic and benthic foraminiferal assemblages as well as the isotopic signature of foraminiferal carbonate diffe…
South Asian monsoon climate change and radiocarbon in the Arabian Sea during early and middle Holocene
The 1 4 C ages of planktonic foraminifers Globigerinoides sacculifer bracketing the Younger Dryas in a δ 1 8 O record of Globigerinoides ruber from a laminated sediment core on the Pakistani continental margin suggest thatsurface reservoir ages in the Arabian Sea were in excess of 1000 years during the deglaciation. A least squares error fit of a detailed 1 4 C chronology to the (atmospheric) tree ring record gave variable early Holocene reservoir ages between 780 and 1120 years, well above the prebomb value of 640 years. Mid-Holocene reservoir ages are less well constrained but were probably closer to the prebomb value. The method used to fit individual core sections to the tree ring recor…
Dating Bulk Sediments from Limnic Deposits Using a Grain-Size Approach
Radiocarbon measurements on bulk subaqueous sediments typically provide ages significantly older than actual time of deposition. This is generally caused by the presence of reworked organic compounds, which are depleted in 14C. To explore this issue of age heterogeneity, we collected 4 organic-rich samples from varying depths in a lake sediment core at the Gemündener Maar (Eifel, Germany), a lake of volcanic origin. We divided each sample into 5 standard grain-size fractions: gravel, sand, silt, clay, and 1 fraction smaller than 0.45 μm. These were cleaned separately using a standard acid-alkali-acid treatment. The highly organic gravel-size fraction provided the youngest 14C ages of all gr…
Climate change at the 4.2 ka BP termination of the Indus valley civilization and Holocene south Asian monsoon variability
[1] Planktonic oxygen isotope ratios off the Indus delta reveal climate changes with a multi-centennial pacing during the last 6 ka, with the most prominent change recorded at 4.2 ka BP. Opposing isotopic trends across the northern Arabian Sea surface at that time indicate a reduction in Indus river discharge and suggest that later cycles also reflect variations in total annual rainfall over south Asia. The 4.2 ka event is coherent with the termination of urban Harappan civilization in the Indus valley. Thus, drought may have initiated southeastward habitat tracking within the Harappan cultural domain. The late Holocene drought cycles following the 4.2 ka BP event vary between 200 and 800 y…
Multi-proxy dating of Holocene maar lakes and Pleistocene dry maar sediments in the Eifel, Germany
Abstract During the last twelve years the ELSA Project (Eifel Laminated Sediment Archive) at Mainz University has drilled a total of about 52 cores from 27 maar lakes and filled-in maar basins in the Eifel/Germany. Dating has been completed for the Holocene cores using 6 different methods (210Pb and 137Cs activities, palynostratigraphy, event markers, varve counting, 14C). In general, the different methods consistently complement one another within error margins. Event correlation was used for relating typical lithological changes with historically known events such as the two major Holocene flood events at 1342 AD and ca 800 BC. Dating of MIS2–MIS3 core sections is based on greyscale tunin…
(Table 1) Age determination of sediment profile SO90-41KL/63KA
The 14C ages of planktonic foraminifers Globigerinoides sacculifer bracketing the Younger Dryas in a d18O record of Globigerinoides ruber from a laminated sediment core on the Pakistani continental margin suggest that surface reservoir ages in the Arabian Sea were in excess of 1000 years during the deglaciation. A least squares error fit of a detailed 14C chronology to the (atmospheric) tree ring record gave variable early Holocene reservoir ages between 780 and 1120 years, well above the prebomb value of 640 years. Mid-Holocene reservoir ages are less well constrained but were probably closer to the prebomb value. The method used to fit individual core sections to the tree ring record was …
Dust-stack 2013 of combined sediment record ELSA
During the last twelve years the ELSA Project (Eifel Laminated Sediment Archive) at Mainz University has drilled a total of about 52 cores from 27 maar lakes and filled-in maar basins in the Eifel/Germany. Dating has been completed for the Holocene cores using 6 different methods (210Pb and 137Cs activities, palynostratigraphy, event markers, varve counting, 14C). In general, the different methods consistently complement one another within error margins. Event correlation was used for relating typical lithological changes with historically known events such as the two major Holocene flood events at 1342 AD and ca 800 BC. Dating of MIS2?MIS3 core sections is based on greyscale tuning, radioc…