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Project Details: Icelandic Freshwater Radiocarbon Reservoir Effects

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Project Description

Title: Icelandic Freshwater Radiocarbon Reservoir Effects
Description The radiocarbon levels in carbon from freshwater systems of lakes and rivers can be lower than in carbon from the terrestrial biosphere. This makes freshwater carbon appear anomalously old when it is radiocarbon dated. In Iceland, freshwater systems are frequently affected by a Freshwater 14C reservoir effect, or FRE, due to inputs of ancient carbon from geothermal systems, and can appear several thousand years older than equivalent terrestrial samples. These FREs affect not only freshwater biota such as fish, but also organisms that consumed freshwater resources, such as pigs and humans. The present project centres on Myvanssveit, in the northern interior highlands of Iceland, where a large FRE has been identified in Lake Myvatn. The Norse inhabitants of the region relied upon a resource based that included freshwater resources, and consequently bone collagen from humans and pigs within the region may be affected by a FRE. The ongoing project aims to characterise and quantify the FRE within this region, and explore its impact upon 14C dating of Norse communities.
Keywords:Radiocarbon
Freshwater
Reservoir
Myvatn
Sponsors/Funders National Science Foundation of America,National Environmental Research Council (UK),The Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland,The Royal Scottish Geographical Society
Country Iceland
Project Start Year 2006
Project End Year Ongoing

Project Contact

Contact: Philippa Ascough
Address SUERC, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride.
Postcode G75 0QF
Website http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/suerc/ourstaff/ascoughphilippa/
Email philippa.ascough@gla.ac.uk

Project Content

An Icelandic Freshwater Radiocarbon Reservoir Effect: Implications for lacustrine 14C chronologies

P L Ascough, G T Cook, H Hastie, E Dunbar, M J Church, Á Einarsson, T H McGovern, A J Dugmore. (2011). An Icelandic Freshwater Radiocarbon Reservoir Effect: Implications for lacustrine 14C chronologies. The Holocene 21(7), 1073-1080.

A freshwater radiocarbon (14C) reservoir effect (FRE) is a 14C age offset between the atmospheric and freshwater carbon reservoirs. FREs can be on the order of 10 000 14C yr in extreme examples and are a crucial consideration for 14C dating of palaeoenvironmental and archaeological samples. Correction for a FRE may be possible, provided the...


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