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Radiocarbon dating

  • 25-01-2013 11:44am
    #1
    Leopold.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 87 ✭✭


    Hi I'm a student and I need to get some sediment cores radiocarbon dated , the college I am in does not have this tools for this. Anyone know where I could get these cores dated?
    Thanks


Comments

  • #2
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Well not many places would, there's only one place in all of Ireland in fact, that's the 14CHRONO Centre in Queen's University Belfast which do radiocarbon dating with the AMS, here's there website: http://www.chrono.qub.ac.uk/.

    Beta Analytic in Florida, here's there website: http://www.radiocarbon.com/

    If I were you, I'd discuss it with my supervisor first. The type of material you want dated, the number of samples etc... As it does cost a lot of money (even at reduced student prices), but Queen's would be very good (since they're the ones who've come up with the most recent calibration curve and have produced numerous statistical packages for modelling data (i.e. age-depth models such as CLAM and BACON).


  • #3
    Leopold.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 87 ✭✭Leopold.


    El Siglo wrote: »
    Well not many places would, there's only one place in all of Ireland in fact, that's the 14CHRONO Centre in Queen's University Belfast which do radiocarbon dating with the AMS, here's there website: http://www.chrono.qub.ac.uk/.

    Beta Analytic in Florida, here's there website: http://www.radiocarbon.com/

    If I were you, I'd discuss it with my supervisor first. The type of material you want dated, the number of samples etc... As it does cost a lot of money (even at reduced student prices), but Queen's would be very good (since they're the ones who've come up with the most recent calibration curve and have produced numerous statistical packages for modelling data (i.e. age-depth models such as CLAM and BACON).
    What about UCD?


  • #4
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Leopold. wrote: »
    What about UCD?

    Well UCD has the ultra-low-level liquid scintillation counting, but you need a lot of material and it takes ages to do. Scintillation counting is the traditional way but nearly everyone is going AMS and nowhere else in Ireland does that but Queen's. Again though what are you trying to date? Is it sediment from a core or bone material or shells? It really does depend on what your project aim is. For cores AMS is great because you use less material so you can get really well constrained strata (i.e. You're using dating a unit of 5mm as opposed to 5cm).


  • #5
    Leopold.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 87 ✭✭Leopold.


    El Siglo wrote: »
    Well UCD has the ultra-low-level liquid scintillation counting, but you need a lot of material and it takes ages to do. Scintillation counting is the traditional way but nearly everyone is going AMS and nowhere else in Ireland does that but Queen's. Again though what are you trying to date? Is it sediment from a core or bone material or shells? It really does depend on what your project aim is. For cores AMS is great because you use less material so you can get really well constrained strata (i.e. You're using dating a unit of 5mm as opposed to 5cm).

    hi, it's sediment for tsunamis/storm frequency


  • #6
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Leopold. wrote: »

    hi, it's sediment for tsunamis/storm frequency

    Are the cores long? How deep did you core? Are they from a lake/tidal mudflat/peat bog/etc...? What does the sediment look like? Have you got the LOI for organic matter content? Have you done any ITRAX? You see you're sort of looking for the odd one out, so for example if you did ITRAX it might show you where there might be a tsunami if there was say a sudden increase in Zn, or if you did grain size you could have a layer of say coarse sand but everything else is finer sand. Then you could date the base of the core and the material on either side of the potentially tsunami derived sediment. It does sound like a job for the AMS in Queen's. I'm doing something similar to what you're doing and it's the way I'd go. If you want pm me and I'll see if I can help.


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  • #7
    Leopold.
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 87 ✭✭Leopold.


    El Siglo wrote: »
    Are the cores long? How deep did you core? Are they from a lake/tidal mudflat/peat bog/etc...? What does the sediment look like? Have you got the LOI for organic matter content? Have you done any ITRAX? You see you're sort of looking for the odd one out, so for example if you did ITRAX it might show you where there might be a tsunami if there was say a sudden increase in Zn, or if you did grain size you could have a layer of say coarse sand but everything else is finer sand. Then you could date the base of the core and the material on either side of the potentially tsunami derived sediment. It does sound like a job for the AMS in Queen's. I'm doing something similar to what you're doing and it's the way I'd go. If you want pm me and I'll see if I can help.

    Hi, I haven't got the core yet, I plan to get it from a coastal area ,in western Ireland. Its for my dissertation , but I won't be doing it until summer. I'm not sure what ITRAX is, basically I'm just looking for the years that there were storm surges of tsunamis, i want to investigate storm surges and the link to oscillations in SST. I can look up SST data etc and try to correlate the two. What are you doing yourself?


  • #8
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Leopold. wrote: »

    Hi, I haven't got the core yet, I plan to get it from a coastal area ,in western Ireland. Its for my dissertation , but I won't be doing it until summer. I'm not sure what ITRAX is, basically I'm just looking for the years that there were storm surges of tsunamis, i want to investigate storm surges and the link to oscillations in SST. I can look up SST data etc and try to correlate the two. What are you doing yourself?

    I see what you mean. ITRAX is an XRF core scanner, very high resolution. Are you in TCD by any chance? TCD has a research partnership with UCD and UCD has this particular instrument. Essentially, sediments will respond to surges, so grain size is pretty important. I've not done much on reconstructing SSTs, but I'd imagine some microfossils respond to changing temperatures fairly well (diatoms and forams come to mind). By any chance does your supervisor do micropalaeontology? I'm based in Queen's looking at the late Holocene sedimentary dynamics of the lower Ganges-Brahmaputra delta plain in India. It depends on your sedimentation rate, if it's low and consistent and for some reason it accelerates and drops back to 'normal' then you could have something going on. To be honest I wouldn't want to speculate too much until you have the core collected and you get some age(s) off it. The important thing to remember is get an age for the base of the core, make sure it's got enough organics, don't date bulk sediment (better to use a plant or something that has lived, if you can find it that is, if not see about extracting humics if you're really stuck). Get that age first and then go from there. That's why I was saying ITRAX as it is non-destructive and ultra high-resolution that you can scan the core, see if there's some sort of a trend and where this trend changes, then see what does changes are. Anyway, food for thought but get the core first and see what your supervisor thinks.


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