Marine radiocarbon reservoir corrections for the midto late Holocene in the eastern subpolar North Atlantic

• Published in: The Holocene
• Main Authors: Reimer, P. J., McCormac, F. G., Moore, J., McCormick, F., Murray, E. V.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2002
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1191/0959683602hl528rp; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1191/0959683602hl528rp

The time dependency of the regional difference ΔR in the marine radiocarbon reservoir correction is an important issue for the calibration of marine radiocarbon ages and also provides information about past ocean circulation changes. Few measurements of Holocene reservoir corrections are available for the climatically important North Atlantic. We determined ΔR for intervals during the past 6100 years before present (BP) by comparing radiocarbon ages of 31 marine and terrestrial sample pairs from 14 archaeological sites from the coast of Ireland, Scotland and the Orkney Islands. We find that, while a time dependency in ΔR for this region cannot be ruled out, within the error of the determinations, the ΔR appears to have been constant for at least the last 2000 and possibly the last 6000 years. This work results in a recommendation for ΔR of 33 +93 for the region.