Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T10:28:23.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

New 14C Determinations from Lake Suigetsu, Japan: 12,000 to 0 Cal BP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Richard A Staff ,
Christopher Bronk Ramsey ,
Charlotte L Bryant ,
Fiona Brock ,
Rebecca L Payne ,
Gordon Schlolaut ,
Michael H Marshall ,
Achim Brauer ,
Henry F Lamb  and
Pavel Tarasov
...Show all authors
Richard A Staff*
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
Charlotte L Bryant
Affiliation:
NERC Radiocarbon Facility–Environment (NRCF-E), Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
Fiona Brock
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
Rebecca L Payne
Affiliation:
Dept. of Geography, University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
Gordon Schlolaut
Affiliation:
Section 5.2: Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, German Research Center for Geoscience (GFZ), Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany.
Michael H Marshall
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, United Kingdom.
Achim Brauer
Affiliation:
Section 5.2: Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, German Research Center for Geoscience (GFZ), Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany.
Henry F Lamb
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, United Kingdom.
Pavel Tarasov
Affiliation:
Institute of Geological Sciences, Palaeontology, Freie Universität Berlin, Malteserstrasse 74-100, Building D, 12249 Berlin, Germany.
Yusuke Yokoyama
Affiliation:
Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. Also: Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, 1-15-1 Minami-dai, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-8639, Japan.
Tsuyoshi Haraguchi
Affiliation:
Dept. of Biology and Geosciences, Osaka City University, 3-3-138 Sugimoto, Japan.
Katsuya Gotanda
Affiliation:
Faculty of Policy Informatics, Chiba University of Commerce, Chiba 272-8512, Japan.
Hitoshi Yonenobu
Affiliation:
College of Education, Naruto University of Education, Naruto 772-8502, Japan.
Takeshi Nakagawa
Affiliation:
Dept. of Geography, University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
Suigetsu 2006 Project Members
Affiliation:
For full details, see: www.suigetsu.org.
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Calibration is a fundamental stage of the radiocarbon (14C) dating process if one is to derive meaningful calendar ages from samples' 14C measurements. For the first time, the IntCal09 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2009) provided an internationally ratified calibration data set across almost the complete range (0 to 50,000 cal BP) of the 14C timescale. However, only the last 12,550 cal yr of this record are composed of terrestrial data, leaving approximately three quarters of the 14C timescale necessarily calibrated via less secure, marine records (incorporating assumptions pertaining to the temporally variable “marine reservoir effect”). The predominantly annually laminated (varved) sediment profile of Lake Suigetsu, central Japan, offers an ideal opportunity to derive an extended terrestrial record of atmospheric 14C across the entire range of the method, through pairing of 14C measurements of terrestrial plant macrofossil samples (extracted from the sediment) with the independent chronology provided through counting of its annual laminations.

This paper presents new data (182 14C determinations) from the upper (largely non-varved) 15 m of the Lake Suigetsu (SG06) sediment strata. These measurements provide evidence of excellent coherence between the Suigetsu 14C data and the IntCal09 calibration curve across the last ~12,000 cal yr (i.e. the portion of IntCal based entirely on terrestrial data). Such agreement demonstrates that terrestrial plant material picked from the Lake Suigetsu sediment provides a reliable archive of atmospheric 14C, and therefore supports the site as being capable of providing a high-resolution extension to the “wholly terrestrial” (i.e. non-reservoir-corrected) calibration curve beyond its present 12,550 cal BP limit.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , 2011 , pp. 511 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

Boutton, TW, Wong, WW, Hachey, DL, Lee, LS, Cabrera, MP, Klein, PD. 1983. Comparison of quartz and Pyrex tubes for combustion of organic samples for stable carbon isotope analysis. Analytical Chemistry 55(11):1832–3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brauer, A, Endres, C, Günter, C, Litt, T, Stebich, M, Negendank, JFW. 1999. High resolution sediment and vegetation responses to Younger Dryas climate change in varved lake sediments from Meerfelder Maar, Germany. Quaternary Science Reviews 18(3):321–9.Google Scholar
Brock, F, Higham, T, Ditchfield, P, Bronk Ramsey, C. 2010. Current pretreatment methods for AMS radiocarbon dating at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU). Radiocarbon 52(1):103–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2008. Deposition models for chronological records. Quaternary Science Reviews 27(1–2):42–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009a. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1):337–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009b. Dealing with outliers and offsets in radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon 51(3):1023–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Higham, T, Leach, P. 2004. Towards high-precision AMS: progress and limitations. Radiocarbon 46(1):17–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Dee, M, Lee, S, Nakagawa, T, Staff, RA. 2010. Developments in the calibration and modeling of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 52(2–3):953–61.Google Scholar
de Vries, HL. 1958. Variation in concentration of radiocarbon with time and location on Earth. Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen B 61:94–102.Google Scholar
Dee, M, Bronk Ramsey, C. 2000. Refinement of graphite target production at ORAU. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 172(1–4):449–53.Google Scholar
Fairbanks, RG, Mortlock, RA, Chiu, T-C, Cao, L, Kaplan, A, Guilderson, TP, Fairbanks, TW, Bloom, AL, Grootes, PM, Nadeau, M-J. 2005. Radiocarbon calibration curve spanning 0 to 50,000 years BP based on paired 230Th/234U/238U and 14C dates on pristine corals. Quaternary Science Reviews 24(16–17):1781–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, SPHT, Cook, GT, Dougans, AB, Naysmith, P, Wilcken, KM, Xu, S. 2010. Improved SSAMS performance. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 268(7–8):715–7.Google Scholar
Fukusawa, H. 1995. Non-glacial varved lake sediment as a natural timekeeper and detector on environmental changes. The Quaternary Research 34(3):135–49. In Japanese with English abstract.Google Scholar
Hajdas, I, Bonani, G, Goslar, T. 1995. Radiocarbon dating the Holocene in the Gościaoż Lake floating varve chronology. Radiocarbon 37(1):71–4.Google Scholar
Hatté, C, Jull, AJT. 2007. Radiocarbon dating: plant macrofossils. In: Elias, S, editor. Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science. Amsterdam: Elsevier. p 2958–65.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, DL, Beck, JW, Richards, DA, Smart, PL, Singarayer, JS, Ketchmark, T, Hawkesworth, CJ. 2010. Towards radiocarbon calibration beyond 28 ka using speleothems from the Bahamas. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 289(1–2):1–10.Google Scholar
Hughen, KA, Lehman, SJ, Southon, JR, Overpeck, JT, Marchal, O, Herring, C, Turnbull, J. 2004. 14C activity and global carbon cycle changes over the past 50,000 years. Science 303(5655):202–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hughen, KA, Southon, JR, Lehman, SJ, Bertrand, C, Turnbull, J. 2006. Marine-derived 14C calibration and activity record for the past 50,000 years updated from the Cariaco Basin. Quaternary Science Reviews 25(23–24):3216–27.Google Scholar
Katsuta, N, Takano, M, Kawakami, S-I, Togami, S, Fukusawa, H, Kumuzawa, M, Yasuda, Y. 2007. Advanced micro-XRF method to separate sedimentary rhythms and event layers in sediments: its application to lacustrine sediment from Lake Suigetsu, Japan. Journal of Paleolimnology 37(2):259–71.Google Scholar
Kitagawa, H, van der Plicht, J. 1998a. Atmospheric radiocarbon calibration to 45,000 yr B.P.: late glacial fluctuations and cosmogenic isotope production. Science 279(5354):1187–90.Google Scholar
Kitagawa, H, van der Plicht, J. 1998b. A 40,000-year varve chronology from Lake Suigetsu, Japan: extension of the 14C calibration curve. Radiocarbon 40(1):505–15.Google Scholar
Kitagawa, H, van der Plicht, J. 2000. Atmospheric radiocarbon calibration beyond 11,900 cal BP from Lake Suigetsu laminated sediments. Radiocarbon 42(3):369–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Libby, WF. 1955. Radiocarbon Dating. 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Libby, WF, Anderson, EC, Arnold, JR. 1949. Age determination by radiocarbon content: world-wide assay of natural radiocarbon. Science 109(2827):227–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Muscheler, R, Kromer, B, Björck, S, Svensson, A, Friedrich, M, Kaiser, KF, Southon, J. 2008. Tree rings and ice cores reveal 14C calibration uncertainties during the Younger Dryas. Nature Geoscience 1:263–7.Google Scholar
Nakagawa, T, Gotanda, K, Haraguchi, T, Danhara, T, Yonenobu, H, Brauer, A, Yokoyama, Y, Tada, R, Takemura, K, Staff, RA, Payne, R, Bronk Ramsey, C, Bryant, C, Brock, F, Schlolaut, G, Marshall, M, Tarasov, P, Lamb, H, Suigetsu 2006 Project Members. 2011. SG06, a fully continuous and varved sediment core from Lake Suigetsu, Japan: stratigraphy and potential for improving the radiocarbon calibration model and understanding of late Quaternary climate changes. Quaternary Science Reviews. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.12.013.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Naysmith, P, Cook, GT, Freeman, SPHT, Scott, EM, Anderson, R, Xu, S, Dunbar, E, Muir, GKP, Dougans, A, Wilcken, K, Schnabel, C, Russell, N, Ascough, PL, Maden, C. 2010. 14C AMS at SUERC: improving QA data with the 5MV tandem and 250kV SSAMS. Radiocarbon 52(2–3):263–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rasmussen, SO, Andersen, KK, Svensson, AM, Steffensen, JP, Vinther, BM, Clausen, HB, Siggaard-Andersen, ML, Johnsen, SJ, Larsen, LB, Dahl-Jensen, D, Bigler, M, Röthlisberger, R, Fischer, H, Goto-Azuma, K, Hansson, ME, Ruth, U. 2006. A new Greenland ice core chronology for the last glacial termination. Journal of Geophysical Research 111:D06102, doi:10.1029/2005JD006079.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Reimer, RW. 2001. A marine reservoir correction database and on-line interface. Radiocarbon 43(2A):461–3.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Hughen, KA, Guilderson, TP, McCormac, G, Baillie, MGL, Bard, E, Barratt, P, Beck, JW, Buck, CE, Damon, PE, Friedrich, M, Kromer, B, Bronk Ramsey, C, Reimer, RW, Remmele, S, Southon, JR, Stuiver, M, van der Plicht, J. 2002. Preliminary report of the first workshop of the IntCal04 Radiocarbon Calibration/Comparison Working Group. Radiocarbon 44(3):653–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Brown, TA, Reimer, RW. 2004. Discussion: reporting and calibration of post-bomb 14C data. Radiocarbon 46(3):1299–304.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Baillie, MGL, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Blackwell, PG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Buck, CE, Burr, GS, Edwards, RL, Friedrich, M, Grootes, PM, Guilderson, TP, Hajdas, I, Heaton, TJ, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kaiser, KF, Kromer, B, McCormac, FG, Manning, SW, Reimer, RW, Richards, DA, Southon, JR, Talamo, S, Turney, CSM, van der Plicht, J, Weyhenmeyer, CE. 2009. IntCal09 and Marine09 radiocarbon age calibration curves, 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 51(4):1111–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slota, PJ Jr, Jull, AJT, Linick, TW, Toolin, LJ. 1987. Preparation of small samples for 14C accelerator targets by catalytic reduction of CO. Radiocarbon 29(2):303–6.Google Scholar
Smith, VC, Mark, DF, Staff, RA, Blockley, SPE, Bronk Ramsey, C, Bryant, CL, Nakagawa, T, Han, KK, Weh, A, Takemura, K, Danhara, T, Suigetsu 2006 Project Members. 2011. Toward establishing precise 40Ar/39Ar chronologies for Late Pleistocene palaeoclimate archives: an example from the Lake Suigetsu (Japan) sedimentary record. Quaternary Science Reviews. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2011.06.020.Google Scholar
Staff, RA. 2011. Research on radiocarbon calibration records, focussing on new measurements from Lake Suigetsu, Japan [unpublished DPhil thesis]. University of Oxford.Google Scholar
Staff, RA, Bronk Ramsey, C, Bryant, CL, Brock, F, Lamb, HF, Marshall, MH, Brauer, A, Schlolaut, G, Tarasov, P, Payne, RL, Pearson, EJ, Yokoyama, Y, Tyler, J, Haraguchi, T, Gotanda, K, Yonenobu, H, Nakagawa, T. 2009. Suigetsu 2006: a wholly terrestrial radiocarbon calibration curve. Paper presented at the 20th International Radiocarbon Conference, 31 May–5 June 2009. Kona, Hawaii.Google Scholar
Staff, RA, Bronk Ramsey, C, Nakagawa, T, Suigetsu 2006 Project Members. 2010. A re-analysis of the Lake Suigetsu terrestrial radiocarbon dataset. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 268(7–8):960–5.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. 1982. A high-precision calibration of the AD radiocarbon timescale. Radiocarbon 24(1):1–26.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Polach, HA. 1977. Discussion: reporting of 14C data. Radiocarbon 19(3):355–63.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ. 1993. Extended 14C data base and revised CALIB 3.0 14C age calibration program. Radiocarbon 35(1):215–30.Google Scholar
Suess, HE. 1970. The three causes of secular C14 fluctuations, their amplitudes and time constants. In: Olsson, IU, editor. Radiocarbon Variations and Absolute Chronology, Twelfth Nobel Symposium, Uppsala 1969. New York: John Wiley and Sons. p 595–605.Google Scholar
van der Plicht, J, Beck, JW, Bard, E, Baillie, MGL, Blackwell, PG, Buck, CE, Friedrich, M, Guilderson, TP, Hughen, KA, Kromer, B, McCormac, FG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Reimer, PJ, Reimer, RW, Remmele, S, Richards, DA, Southon, JR, Stuiver, M, Weyhenmeyer, CE. 2004. NotCal04–comparison/calibration 14C records 26–50 cal kyr BP. Radiocarbon 46(3):1225–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, JS, Southon, JR, Nelson, DE, Brown, TA. 1984. Performance of catalytically condensed carbon for use in accelerator mass spectrometry. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 5(2):289–93.Google Scholar
Walker, MJC. 2005. Quaternary Dating Methods. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Google Scholar
Walker, M, Johnsen, S, Rasmussen, SO, Popp, T, Steffensen, J-P, Gibbard, P, Hoek, W, Lowe, J, Andrews, J, Björck, S, Cwynar, L, Hughen, K, Kershaw, P, Kromer, B, Litt, T, Lowe, DJ, Nakagawa, T, Newnham, R, Schwander, J. 2009. Formal definition and dating of the GSSP (Global Stratotype Section and Point) for the base of the Holocene using the Greenland NGRIP ice core, and selected auxiliary records. Journal of Quaternary Science 24(1):3–17.Google Scholar
Xu, S, Anderson, R, Bryant, C, Cook, GT, Dougans, A, Freeman, S, Naysmith, P, Schnabel, C, Scott, EM. 2004. Capabilities of the new SUERC 5MV AMS facility for 14C dating. Radiocarbon 46(1):59–64.Google Scholar