Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-l4dxg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-28T02:52:54.626Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Bomb Radiocarbon Detected in Palau Archipelago Corals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

Danielle Glynn ,
Ellen Druffel ,
Sheila Griffin ,
Robert Dunbar ,
Michael Osborne  and
Joan Albert Sanchez-Cabeza
Danielle Glynn*
Affiliation:
Earth System Science Department, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697-3100, USA
Ellen Druffel
Affiliation:
Earth System Science Department, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697-3100, USA
Sheila Griffin
Affiliation:
Earth System Science Department, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, California 92697-3100, USA
Robert Dunbar
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-2115, USA
Michael Osborne
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-2115, USA
Joan Albert Sanchez-Cabeza
Affiliation:
Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510 Ciudad de Mexico, Mexico
*
2Corresponding author. Email: dglynn@uci.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In order to evaluate the variability in surface water masses in the Western Pacific Warm Pool, we report high-precision radiocarbon measurements in annual and seasonal bands from Pontes lutea corals collected from the Palau Archipelago (7°N, 134°E). Annual coral bands from 1945 to 2008 and seasonal samples from 1953 to 1957 were analyzed to capture the initial early input of bomb 14C from surface thermonuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands. Results show a pre-bomb average δ14C value of-54.9% between 1945 and early 1953. Beginning early in 1954, there is a rapid increase to a maximum of-23.1% at the start of 1955. Values continued to rise after 1957 to a post-bomb peak of 141% by 1976. The large initial rise in δ14C cannot be accounted for by air-sea CO2 exchange. Results therefore suggest that the primary cause of this increase is the lateral advection of fallout-contaminated water from the Marshall Islands to Palau via the North Equatorial Current and then to the North Equatorial Countercurrent.

Type
Oceanic Carbon Cycle
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 55 , Issue 3: Proceedings of the 21st International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 2 of 2) , 2013 , pp. 1659 - 1664
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Druffel, ERM. 1987. Bomb radiocarbon in the Pacific: annual and seasonal timescale variations. Journal of Marine Research 45(3):667–98.Google Scholar
Druffel, ERM, Linick, TW. 1978. Radiocarbon in annual coral rings of Florida. Geophysical Research Letters 5(11):913–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druffel, ERM, Griffin, S, Beaupre, SR, Dunbar, RB. 2007. Oceanic climate and circulation changes during the past four centuries from radiocarbon in corals. Geophysical Research Letters 34: L09601, doi:10.1029/2006GL028681.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Druffel-Rodriguez, KC, Vetter, D, Griffin, S, Druffel, ERM, Dunbar, RB, Mucciarone, DA, Ziolkowski, LA, Sanchez-Cabeza, J-A. 2012. Radiocarbon and stable isotopes in Palmyra corals during the past century. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 82:154–63.Google Scholar
Fallon, SJ, Guilderson, TP. 2008. Surface water processes in the Indonesian throughflow as documented by a high-resolution coral Δ14C record. Journal of Geophysical Research 113: C09001, doi:10.1029/2008JC004722.Google Scholar
Glasstone, S, Dolan, P. 1977. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons. 3rd edition. US Department of Defense. Chapter IIa. URL: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/host/atomic/nukeffct/index.html.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guilderson, T, Schrag, D. 1998. Abrupt shift in subsurface temperatures in the tropical Pacific associated with changes in El Niño. Science 281(5374):240–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
NOAA/NWS [Internet]. Historical El Niño/La Niña Episodes 1950–present [cited 8 October 2012]. Available from http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/.Google Scholar
Nydal, R, Lövseth, K. 1983. Tracing bomb 14C in the atmosphere 1962–1980. Journal of Geophysical Research 88(C6):3621–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osborne, M, Dunbar, RB, Muccairone, D, Sanchez-Cabeza, JA, Druffel, ERM. Forthcoming. Regionally consistent calibrations of coral proxy records from Palau, West Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP). Paleoceanography.Google Scholar
Santos, GM, Moore, RB, Southon, JR, Griffin, S, Hinger, E, Zhang, D. 2007. AMS 14C sample preparation at the KCCAMS/UCI Facility: status report and performance of small samples. Radiocarbon 49(2):255–69.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Polach, HA. 1977. Discussion: reporting of 14C data. Radiocarbon 19(3):355–63.Google Scholar
Vogel, JS, Southon, JR, Nelson, DE. 1987. Catalyst and binder effects in the use of filamentous graphite for AMS. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 29(1–2):50–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, X, North, R, Romney, C, Richards, PG. 2000. Center for Monitoring Research Nuclear Explosion Database (Rev. 3). In: CMR Technical Report No. CMR-00/16. August 2000. Arlington: CMR.Google Scholar