Late Glacial 14C Ages from a Floating, 1382-Ring Pine Chronology

Abstract

We built a floating, 1382-ring pine chronology covering the radiocarbon age interval of 12,000 to 10,650 BP. Based on the strong rise of Delta-14C at the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) and wiggle-matching of the decadal-scale Delta-14C fluctuations, we can anchor the floating chronology to the Cariaco varve chronology. We observe a marine reservoir correction higher than hitherto assumed for the Cariaco site, of up to 650 yr instead of 400 yr, for the full length of the comparison interval. The tree-ring Delta-14C shows several strong fluctuations of short duration (a few decades) at 13,800, 13,600, and 13,350 cal BP. The amplitude of the strong Delta-14C rise at the onset of the YD is about 40 ppm, whereas in the marine data set the signal appears stronger due to a re-adjustment of the marine mixed-layer Delta-14C towards the atmospheric level.