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Pre-Bomb Δ14C Variability and the Suess Effect in Cariaco Basin Surface Waters as Recorded in Hermatypic Corals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Thomas P Guilderson ,
Julia E Cole  and
John R Southon
Thomas P Guilderson*
Affiliation:
Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA.
Julia E Cole
Affiliation:
Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.
John R Southon
Affiliation:
Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA. Now at Department of Earth System Science, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, California 92697, USA.
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]. Also at Department of Ocean Sciences, University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 94056, USA.
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Abstract

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The Δ14C content of surface waters in and around the Cariaco Basin was reconstructed from radiocarbon measurements on sub-annually sampled coral skeletal material. During the late 1930s to early 1940s, surface waters within and outside of the Cariaco Basin were similar. Within the Cariaco Basin at Islas Tortugas, coral Δ14C averages −51.9 ± 3.3%. Corals collected outside of the basin at Boca de Medio and Los Testigos have Δ14C values of −53.4 ± 3.3% and −54.3 ± 2.6, respectively. Additional 14C analyses on the Isla Tortugas coral document an ∼11% decrease between ∼1905 (−40.9 ± 4.5%) and ∼1940. The implied Suess effect trend (−3%/decade) is nearly as large as that observed in the atmosphere over the same time period. If we assume that there is little to no fossil fuel 14CO2 signature in Cariaco surface waters in ∼1905, the waters have an equivalent reservoir age of ∼312 yr.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , 2005 , pp. 57 - 65
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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