230 Th/U Dating of Frozen Peat, Bol'shoy Lyakhovsky Island (Northern Siberia)

Abstract The chronology of Quaternary paleoenvironment and climate in northeastern Siberia is poorly understood due to a lack of reliable numerical age determinations. The best climatic archives are ice-rich permafrost sequences, which are widely distributed in northeastern Siberia. For this study,...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Published in:Quaternary Research
Main Authors: Schirrmeister, Lutz, Oezen, Deniz, Geyh, Mebus A
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2002
Subjects:
Arctic
Ice
permafrost
Siberia
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/qres.2001.2306
http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0033589401923063?httpAccept=text/xml
http://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S0033589401923063?httpAccept=text/plain
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033589400010784
Description
Summary:Abstract The chronology of Quaternary paleoenvironment and climate in northeastern Siberia is poorly understood due to a lack of reliable numerical age determinations. The best climatic archives are ice-rich permafrost sequences, which are widely distributed in northeastern Siberia. For this study, 230 Th/U-ages were determined by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) from frozen peat in a permafrost deposit at the southern cliff of the Bol'shoy Lyakhovsky Island (New Siberian Archipelago), west of the Zimov'e River. These yielded a Pre-Eemian “isochron”-corrected 230 Th/U-age of 200,900±3400 yr. This result is reliable because permafrost deposits behave as closed systems with respect to uranium and thorium. Our findings suggest that 230 Th/U dating of frozen peat in permafrost deposits is a useful tool for the reconstruction of the Middle Quaternary environment of northern Siberia and of the whole Arctic.

Similar Items