Radiocarbon Dating of Lacustrine Sediments
Summary
Radiocarbon dating of lacustrine sediments underpins our understanding of past environmental and climatic change by establishing chronologies for organic and inorganic deposits in lake basins. Sediment cores capture annual to millennial‐scale variations in biological productivity, catchment erosion and water chemistry. Accurate age models depend on isolating contemporary carbon sources—such as terrestrial plant remains or aquatic organic matter—and recognising potential biases introduced by pre‐aged carbon reservoirs. Advances in sample preparation, measurement sensitivity and multi‐proxy integration have improved the resolution and reliability of age–depth models. As a result, lacustrine archives now provide high‐precision records of Holocene climate oscillations, anthropogenic impact and ecosystem dynamics at regional to global scales.
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Radiocarbon Dating of Lacustrine Sediments publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in radiocarbon dating of lacustrine sediments across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Radiocarbon dating: Method for determining the age of organic materials by measuring the decay of carbon-14.
Lacustrine sediments: Layers of mineral and organic material deposited in lake basins over time.
Freshwater reservoir effect: Phenomenon in which carbon in lake systems appears older than atmospheric carbon due to inputs of pre-aged dissolved carbon.
Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS): Highly sensitive technique for measuring isotopic ratios that enables radiocarbon dating of very small samples.
Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC): Carbon species in water—including CO₂, bicarbonate and carbonate—that influence the apparent age of sedimentary organic matter.
References
- The freshwater reservoir effect in radiocarbon dating. Heritage Science (2013).
- Lake water dissolved inorganic carbon dynamics revealed from monthly measurements of radiocarbon in the Fuji Five Lakes, Japan. Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene (2021).
- An Improved Method for Extracting, Sorting, and AMS Dating of Pollen Concentrates From Lake Sediment. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2021).
- Extraction method for fossil pollen grains using a cell sorter suitable for routine 14C dating. Quaternary Science Reviews (2021).
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