Exploring the dating of “dirty” speleothems and cave sinters using radiocarbon dating of preserved organic matter

AJ Blyth; Q Hua; A Smith; S Frisia; A Borsato; J Hellstrom

Journal article

Exploring the dating of “dirty” speleothems and cave sinters using radiocarbon dating of preserved organic matter

AJ Blyth, Q Hua, A Smith, S Frisia, A Borsato, J Hellstrom

Quaternary Geochronology | ELSEVIER SCI LTD | Published : 2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.quageo.2017.02.002

Abstract

Speleothems and other carbonate deposits such as tufa containing high proportions of detrital material can be difficult to chemically date due to detrital thorium levels causing a high level of error in conventional U-Th disequilibrium dating. Here we investigate the use of an alternative technique centring on radiocarbon dating of organic matter preserved within the detrital fraction. Non-acid soluble humic, particulate and detritally absorbed organic matter was recovered from eight samples from a flowstone sinter formed within a roman aqueduct at Trento in Italy with a maximum age of 100 CE (1850 cal yr BP), and two repeat samples from a dripstone formed within the 20th Century on a wire f..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

John Hellstrom Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering

Funding Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) Research Award ALNGRA13001, and an AINSE Research Fellowship to AJB. The Trento aqueduct flowstone sample was collected by AB and SF under permission from "Soprintintendenza per i beni culturali, Ufficio Beni Archeologici" of the Autonomous Province of Trento. The dripstone sample from Lilly-Pilly Cave was collected by Nicholas White from a manmade structure under permission from Dale Calnin, then Manager for Buchan Caves Reserve.