NATURAL RADIOCARBON IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA1

• Published in: Limnology and Oceanography
• Main Authors: Broecker, Wallace S., Gerard, Robert
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1969
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.4319/lo.1969.14.6.0883; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.4319%2Flo.1969.14.6.0883; https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.4319/lo.1969.14.6.0883

14 C: 12 C ratios for inorganic carbon extracted from 11 water samples collected in the Mediterranean Sea during the summers of 1956 and 1958 fall within the range of 0.917 to 0.952 of the fractionation corrected 14 C: 12 C ratio for pre‐1900 atmospheric CO 2 . This small range indicates that vertical mixing takes place within this sea on a time scale of about 100 years. The 14 C: 12 C ratios in the surface and intermediate waters of the Mediterranean are, as expected from hydrologic considerations, nearly equal to those in the adjacent surface North Atlantic.