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Science 30 November 2001:
Vol. 294. no. 5548, pp. 1917 - 1920
DOI: 10.1126/science.1063649
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Reports

Mediterranean Sea Surface Radiocarbon Reservoir Age Changes Since the Last Glacial Maximum

Giuseppe Siani,1* Martine Paterne,1dagger Elisabeth Michel,1 Roberto Sulpizio,3 Alessandro Sbrana,4 Maurice Arnold,12 Geoffrey Haddad5

Sea surface reservoir ages must be known to establish a common chronological framework for marine, continental, and cryospheric paleoproxies, and are crucial for understanding ocean-continent climatic relationships and the paleoventilation of the ocean. Radiocarbon dates of planktonic foraminifera and tephra contemporaneously deposited over Mediterranean marine and terrestrial regions reveal that the reservoir ages were similar to the modern one (~400 years) during most of the past 18,000 carbon-14 years. However, reservoir ages increased by a factor of 2 at the beginning of the last deglaciation. This is attributed to changes of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation during the massive ice discharge event Heinrich 1.

1 Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE),
2 Unité Mixte de Service, CNRS, Avenue de la Terrasse, F-91118 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
3 Centro di Studio per la Geologia Strutturale e Dinamica dell' Appennino,
4 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Via S. Maria 53, 56126 Pisa, Italy.
5 TotalFina Elf, Centre Scientifique Jean Feger, F-64018 Pau, France.
*   Present address: Laboratoire de Géochimie des Roches Sédimentaires Université de Paris XI-Orsay, France.

dagger    To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: martine.paterne{at}lsce.cnrs-gif.fr

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