Radiocarbon measurements of foraminifera with the mini carbon dating system (MICADAS) at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores

Radiocarbon (14C) measurements of foraminifera are often challenging as their reliability and accuracy can be biased by several complicating factors. In this work, at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA) in Seville, an automated setup with a Carbonate Handling System coupled with an automated g...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
Main Authors: Guerra, Roberta, Santos Arévalo, Francisco-Javier, Agulló García, Lidia, García-Tenorio, Rafael
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2019
Subjects:
Radiocarbon
Sample preparation
AMS dating
carbonate
foraminifera
Planktonic foraminifera
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11585/685392
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nimb.2019.04.004
https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1YsQs,3rKY8Ypu
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Summary:Radiocarbon (14C) measurements of foraminifera are often challenging as their reliability and accuracy can be biased by several complicating factors. In this work, at the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA) in Seville, an automated setup with a Carbonate Handling System coupled with an automated graphitization system has been tested to investigate the potential for running samples of foraminiferal carbonate for AMS 14C dating of marine archives. The reproducibility of 14C ages for blanks and standard materials indicates that reliable 14C analyses are possible for carbonate samples with a 14C age up to 50,000 yr BP. With this automated procedure we were able to date monospecific planktonic foraminifera younger than 1000 yr BP. Biological mixing and high sedimentation are potentially complicating mechanisms resulting in anomalous young 14C ages in planktonic foraminifera from the deep Mediterranean Sea.

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