Description: Author Posting. © Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of Dept. of Geosciences, University of Arizona for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Radiocarbon 52 (2010): 1322-1335.

Description: The Keck Carbon Cycle AMS facility at the University of California, Irvine (KCCAMS/UCI) has developed protocols for analyzing radiocarbon in samples as small as ~0.001 mg of carbon (C). Mass-balance background corrections for modern and 14C-dead carbon contamination (MC and DC, respectively) can be assessed by measuring 14C-free and modern standards, respectively, using the same sample processing techniques that are applied to unknown samples. This approach can be validated by measuring secondary standards of similar size and 14C composition to the unknown samples. Ordinary sample processing (such as ABA or leaching pretreatment, combustion/graphitization, and handling) introduces MC contamination of ~0.6 ± 0.3 μg C, while DC is ~0.3 ± 0.15 μg C. Today, the laboratory routinely analyzes graphite samples as small as 0.015 mg C for external submissions and ≅0.001 mg C for internal research activities with a precision of ~1% for ~0.010 mg C. However, when analyzing ultra-small samples isolated by a series of complex chemical and chromatographic methods (such as individual compounds), integrated procedural blanks may be far larger and more variable than those associated with combustion/graphitization alone. In some instances, the mass ratio of these blanks to the compounds of interest may be so high that the reported 14C results are meaningless. Thus, the abundance and variability of both MC and DC contamination encountered during ultra-small sample analysis must be carefully and thoroughly evaluated. Four case studies are presented to illustrate how extraction chemistry blanks are determined.

Description: Author Posting. © The Authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License The definitive version was published in Radiocarbon 52 (2010): 301-309.

Description: We present a status report of the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) facility at the University of California, Irvine, USA. Recent spectrometer upgrades and repairs are discussed. Modifications to preparation laboratory procedures designed to improve sample throughput efficiency while maintaining precision of 2–3‰ for 1-mg samples (Santos et al. 2007c) are presented.

Description: Author Posting. © Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona, 2007. This article is posted here by permission of Dept. of Geosciences, University of Arizona for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Radiocarbon 49 (2007): 301-306.

Description: We report on 2 recent developments in an ongoing program of characterizing and improving the National Electrostatics Corp. (NEC) MC-SNICS ion source at University of California (UC) Irvine’s Keck AMS laboratory. First, we have investigated the possibility of modifying a large-body (134-sample) MC-SNICS to incorporate the UC Irvine Cs oven and vacuum-insulated Cs feed tube, which provide better confinement of Cs than the standard NEC setup. In our 40-sample source, the feed tube enters the source housing directly below the ionizer assembly. This area cannot be accessed for machining on the 134-sample source, but we have successfully tested a modified geometry where the delivery tube enters the body via the source end flange. Second, we recently installed a second beam profile monitor in the injection line of our spectrometer to allow us to make online emittance measurements. At full output (150 μA of C– at 55 keV), the emittance of our source at 8 kV sputtering voltage is approximately 40π mm mrad.

Description: Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here under a nonexclusive, irrevocable, paid-up, worldwide license granted to WHOI. It is made available for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 244 (2019): 502-521, doi:10.1016/j.gca.2018.09.034.

Description: Relatively little is known about the amount of time that lapses between the photosynthetic fixation of carbon by vascular land plants and its incorporation into the marine sedimentary record, yet the dynamics of terrestrial carbon sequestration have important implications for the carbon cycle. Vascular plant carbon may encounter multiple potential intermediate storage pools and transport trajectories, and the age of vascular plant carbon accumulating in marine sediments will reflect these different predepositional histories. Here, we examine down-core 14C profiles of higher plant leaf waxderived fatty acids isolated from high fidelity sedimentary sequences spanning the socalled “bomb-spike”, and encompassing a ca. 60-degree latitudinal gradient from tropical (Cariaco Basin), temperate (Saanich Inlet), and polar (Mackenzie Delta) watersheds to constrain integrated vascular plant carbon storage/transport times (“residence times”). Using a modeling framework, we find that, in addition to a "young" (conditionally defined as 〈 50 y) carbon pool, an old pool of compounds comprises 49 to 78 % of the fractional contribution of organic carbon (OC) and exhibits variable ages reflective of the environmental setting. For the Mackenzie Delta sediments, we find a mean age of the old pool of 28 ky (±9.4, standard deviation), indicating extensive pre-aging in permafrost soils, whereas the old pools in Saanich Inlet and Cariaco Basin sediments are younger, 7.9 (±5.0) and 2.4 (±0.50) to 3.2 (±0.54) ky, respectively, indicating less protracted storage in terrestrial reservoirs. The "young" pool showed clear annual contributions for Saanich Inlet and Mackenzie Delta sediments (comprising 24% and 16% of this pool, respectively), likely reflecting episodic transport of OC from steep hillside slopes surrounding Saanich Inlet and annual spring flood deposition in the Mackenzie Delta, respectively. Contributions of 5-10 year old OC to the Cariaco Basin show a short delay of OC inflow, potentially related to transport time to the offshore basin. Modeling results also indicate that the Mackenzie Delta has an influx of young but decadal material (20-30 years of age), pointing to the presence of an intermediate reservoir. Overall, these results show that a significant fraction of vascular plant C undergoes pre-aging in terrestrial reservoirs prior to accumulation in deltaic and marine sediments. The age distribution, reflecting both storage and transport times, likely depends on landscape-specific factors such as local topography, hydrographic characteristics, and mean annual temperature of the catchment, all of which affect the degree of soil buildup and preservation. We show that catchment-specific carbon residence times across landscapes can vary by an order of magnitude, with important implications both for carbon cycle studies and for the interpretation of molecular terrestrial paleoclimate records preserved in sedimentary sequences.

Description: Financial support was provided by a Schlanger Ocean Drilling Graduate Fellowship (NJD), an EPA STAR Graduate Fellowship (NJD), a Dutch NWO Veni grant #825.10.022 (JEV), US NSF grants #OCE-0137005 (TIE and KAH), #OCE-052626800 (TIE), #OCE-0961980 (ERMD), and #EAR-0447323 (ERMD and JRS), a Swiss SNF grant #200021_140850 (TIE), a Swedish Research Council grant #2013-05204 (MS), as well as the Stanley Watson Chair for Excellence in Oceanography at WHOI (TIE) and the WHOI Arctic Research Initiative (TIE and LG).