Search results for "element"
showing 10 items of 13601 documents
Bone diagenesis in arid environments; An intra-skeletal approach
2014
Bone trace element content and isotopic composition are closely related to human nutrition. The investigation of archaeological bone geochemistry can help us to better understand the relationship between past populations and their environment alongside cultural practices as inferred from dietary reconstruction. However, dietary in- formation may be altered post-mortem by diagenetic processes in soil. In this study, bone mineralogy (Ca/P, sec- ondary minerals, organic matter content and bone apatite crystallinity), histology, element content (Mg, Na, F, Sr, Ba, Mn, Fe, La, Ce and U) and stable isotope composition (δ13Candδ18O carbonate) were investigated at the intra- individual scale in ord…
Influence of dissolved organic matter on rare earth elements and yttrium distributions in coastal waters
2010
International audience; Data collected during this study indicate that dissolved Y and REE (rare earth element) behaviour can be monitored through shale-normalised ratios. Relationships occurring between these ratios suggest that leaching from lithogenic materials is the main source of REE in the studied area. This process involves riverine detrital matter in the inner area of the Gulf of Palermo. Features of shale-normalised patterns and the relationship recognised between dissolved Fe and Y/Ho suggest that REE are released from Fe-rich coatings of atmospheric dust. Observed similarities between dissolved Fe and chlorophyll- content suggest that leaching of Fe-rich atmospheric particulates…
Highly-resolved radiocarbon measurements on shells from Kalba, UAE, using carbonate handling system and gas ion source with MICADAS
2019
Abstract The Mini Carbon Dating System (MICADAS) represents a flexible AMS system for measuring radiocarbon samples either in the form of graphite or CO2 gas. We used the possibility to attach a carbonate handling system (CHS) to the gas ion source (GIS) to measure smaller amounts of carbonates ( 3) are used to clean the system. We tested the CHS-GIS combination on heated and unheated archaeological shells of Anadara uropigimelana from Kalba, Sharjah Emirate, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Even though the amount of carbon in the samples was small (4–22 µg C) the performance of the CO2 dating system permits the comparison of trends in the 14C data to stable isotope measurements (δ18O and δ13C)…
Micro-PIXE/PIGE analysis of Palaeolithic mammoth ivory: Potential chemical markers of provenance and relative dating
2014
Abstract Micro-Proton Induced X-ray and Gamma-ray Emission (micro-PIXE/PIGE) provide non-destructive methods for the evaluation of the major, minor and trace element compositions of archaeological material. The current study applies micro-PIXE/PIGE analysis to mammoth ivory artefacts from four Palaeolithic sites (Abri Castanet, Vogelherd Cave, Grottes de la Verpilliere I and II) in France and Germany in order to assess the effectiveness of this approach to material older than 30,000 y BP. It has thus far not been established whether such methods of analysis can yield results of scientific and archaeological interest on ivory material that has undergone such extended periods of diagenesis. T…
Burned bones forensic investigations employing near infrared spectroscopy
2017
The use of near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy was evaluated, by using chemometric tools, for the study of the environmental impact on burned bones. Spectra of internal and external parts of burned bones, together with sediment samples, were treated by Principal Component Analysis and cluster classification as exploratory techniques to select burned bone samples, less affected by environmental processes, to properly carry out forensic studies. Partial Least Square Discriminant Analysis was used to build a model to classify bone samples based on their burning conditions, providing an efficient and accurate method to discern calcined and carbonized bone. Additionally, Partial Least Square regres…
Hydrothermalism in the Tyrrhenian Sea: Inorganic and microbial sulfur cycling as revealed by geochemical and multiple sulfur isotope data
2011
15 pages; International audience; The Palinuro volcanic complex and the Panarea hydrothermal field, both located in the Tyrrhenian Sea (Italy), are associated with island arc magmatism and characterized by polymetallic sulfide mineralization. Dissolved sulfide concentrations, pH, and Eh measured in porewaters at both sites reveal a variable hydrothermal influence on porewater chemistry. Multiple sulfur isotopic measurements for disseminated sulfides (CRS: chromium reducible sulfur) extracted from sediments at Palinuro yielded a broad range in δ34S range between −29.8 and +10.2‰ and Δ33S values between+0.015 and+0.134‰. In contrast, sediments at Panarea exhibit a much smaller range in δ34SCR…
Carbon and Oxygen Isotope Signals from the Callovian–Oxfordian in French Sedimentary Basins
2013
3 pages; International audience; High-resolution carbon and oxygen isotope data from the Paris Basin and the Subalpine Basin (France) are available in a precise biostratigraphic framework for the Callovian-Oxfordian stages. A biostratigraphically well-constrained δ13C curve, derived from bulk carbonates in the Paris Basin and the Subalpine Basin, is provided in order to document carbon-cycle evolution and to serve as a chemostratigraphic reference for the Callovian-Oxfordian in the Tethyan domain. Sea-temperature reconstructions, using diagenetically screened belemnite and oyster data, reveal major climate perturbations at the Middle-Late Jurassic transition.
Reconstruction of late Holocene autumn/winter precipitation variability in SW Romania from a high-resolution speleothem trace element record
2018
We present the first high-resolution trace element (Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca, Ba/Ca) record from a stalagmite in southwestern Romania covering the last 3.6 ka, which provides the potential for quantitative climate reconstruction. Precise age control is based on three independent dating methods, in particular for the last 250 yr, where chemical lamina counting is combined with the identification of the 20th century radiocarbon bomb peak and Th-230/U dating. Long-term cave monitoring and model simulations of drip water and speleothem elemental variability indicate that precipitation-related processes are the main drivers of speleothem Mg/Ca ratios. Calibration against instrumental climate data shows a si…
Lignin oxidation products as a vegetation proxy in stalagmite and drip water samples from the Herbstlabyrinth, Germany
2019
Here we present the first quantitative record of lignin oxidation products (LOPs) in a Holocene stalagmite from the Herbstlabyrinth Cave in central Germany, as well as LOP results from 16 months of drip water monitoring. Lignin is only produced by vascular plants and is therefore an unambiguous vegetation proxy, which can help to better interpret other vegetation and climate proxies in speleothems. We compared our results with stable isotope and trace element data from the same samples. The drip water monitoring reveals a seasonal pattern of LOPs in a fast drip site with low LOP concentrations in winter and higher LOP concentrations in summer, which is opposite to the behaviour of the drip …
Applicability and consequences of the integration of alternative models for CO<sub>2</sub> transfer velocity into a process-based lake mo…
2019
Abstract. Freshwater lakes are important in carbon cycling, especially in the boreal zone where many lakes are supersaturated with the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and emit it to the atmosphere, thus ventilating carbon originally fixed by the terrestrial system. The exchange of CO2 between water and the atmosphere is commonly estimated using simple wind-based parameterizations or models of gas transfer velocity (k). More complex surface renewal models, however, have been shown to yield more correct estimates of k in comparison with direct CO2 flux measurements. We incorporated four gas exchange models with different complexity into a vertical process-based physico-biochemical lake mo…