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

• 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

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.