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Radiocarbon Variation in Charcoal/Wood and Soil Fractions from a Loessic Setting in Central Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2016

Joshua D Reuther ,
Alexander Cherkinsky  and
Sam Coffman
Joshua D Reuther*
Affiliation:
University of Alaska Museum of the North, Archaeology Department, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-6960
Alexander Cherkinsky
Affiliation:
University of Georgia - Center for Applied Isotope Studies, 120 Riverbend Rd., Athens, Georgia30602
Sam Coffman
Affiliation:
University of Alaska Museum of the North, Archaeology Department, Fairbanks, Alaska 99775-6960
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

The Healy’s Lucky Strike site in central Alaska has an exceptional Holocene loess-paleosol sequence that has afforded us the ability to look at variation in 14C dating of soil organic matter (SOM) fractions in a high-latitude loess setting. Our work has focused on comparing the radiocarbon ages of charcoal and wood to base-soluble humic acids (HA) and base-insoluble soil residue (SR) fractions from bulk soil samples. Charcoal/wood ages were younger than HA ages reflecting the later stages of vegetation development at the surface of the soils prior to being covered by loess accumulation; the HA ages generally reflect the overall timing of soil formation and mean residence time of SOM. Soil residue ages are older than charcoal/wood and HA ages. SOM ages at this location become increasingly older than charcoal/wood ages with depth, reaching 750 to 8070 yr in difference and associated with weakly developed soils at the lowest depths. We suggest the drastic SOM age differences at this site result from the differential incorporation of small particles of coal throughout the sedimentary matrices introduced older contaminants to SR fractions.

Keywords

Radiocarbon datingsoil organic matterloessinterior Alaska
Type
14C as a Tracer of Past or Present Continental Environment
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 59 , Special Issue 2: Proceedings of the 22nd International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 1 of 2) , April 2017 , pp. 449 - 464
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 2015 Radiocarbon Conference, Dakar, Senegal, 16–20 November 2015

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