- #1
Andre
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- 74
If I google 'Wisconsin glaciation' I see periods mentioned of
Clearly it seems desireable to find the real termination time of the glacial period and see if it matches other ideas on the termination of the ice ages. So let's duck into the formal scientific publications, hunting for dates associated with glacier activity receding.
However, first we need some background on dating methods, nowadays there is a plethora of them, roughly in three groups, radio-activity series, chemical alterations due to exposure to atmospheric conditions, and the third: counting any kind of annual layers.
A special method is radiocarbon dating, which is the most widely used due to the abundance of dateable records. There are several old threads on carbon dating, so I only briefly resume the essence of the method. Radioactive 14C with the half time of 5568±30 (Libby) or 5730±40 years (Cambridge), is generated in the atmosphere and taken up in the biologic carbon cycle. Life tissues constantly refresh carbon, keeping their relative rate of radioactive 14C (delta14C) about constant, but after death the interaction stops and the delta14C decreases logaritmically due to the radioactivity. So the delta14C is a measure of time after death.
It soon showed however that carbon dating did not compare wuth other dating methods because was much more complicated due to many different processes. The most important being variation in the atmospheric delta14C due to variation in pCO2, intensity of the cosmic activity and changing interactions with the oceans. However large (around 1000-3000 years) those differences are constant and robust calibration tables could be made by comparing counted records (annual coral rings, tree rings, lake sediment layers) with the carbon dates. The most current is Intcal04 Reimer et al, Radiocarbon 2004. These tables also circumnavigate the halftime deviation problem as long as the same value is used. Therefore, although wrong, Libby is still in use to avoid recalibrating all the old publications.
This brings us at the main question: how much older publications, relying on uncalibrated carbon dates, are still used to define borders between periods. Have all the dates been calibrated and updated?
We'll see.
-from about 80,000 years ago until about 12,000 years ago-
- lasting from about 100,000 to 10,000 years ago-
-The time interval between 35000 and 11150 calendar years ago is referred to informally as "late Wisconsin time".-
- The glaciers receded into Canada by 9000 years ago-
Clearly it seems desireable to find the real termination time of the glacial period and see if it matches other ideas on the termination of the ice ages. So let's duck into the formal scientific publications, hunting for dates associated with glacier activity receding.
However, first we need some background on dating methods, nowadays there is a plethora of them, roughly in three groups, radio-activity series, chemical alterations due to exposure to atmospheric conditions, and the third: counting any kind of annual layers.
A special method is radiocarbon dating, which is the most widely used due to the abundance of dateable records. There are several old threads on carbon dating, so I only briefly resume the essence of the method. Radioactive 14C with the half time of 5568±30 (Libby) or 5730±40 years (Cambridge), is generated in the atmosphere and taken up in the biologic carbon cycle. Life tissues constantly refresh carbon, keeping their relative rate of radioactive 14C (delta14C) about constant, but after death the interaction stops and the delta14C decreases logaritmically due to the radioactivity. So the delta14C is a measure of time after death.
It soon showed however that carbon dating did not compare wuth other dating methods because was much more complicated due to many different processes. The most important being variation in the atmospheric delta14C due to variation in pCO2, intensity of the cosmic activity and changing interactions with the oceans. However large (around 1000-3000 years) those differences are constant and robust calibration tables could be made by comparing counted records (annual coral rings, tree rings, lake sediment layers) with the carbon dates. The most current is Intcal04 Reimer et al, Radiocarbon 2004. These tables also circumnavigate the halftime deviation problem as long as the same value is used. Therefore, although wrong, Libby is still in use to avoid recalibrating all the old publications.
This brings us at the main question: how much older publications, relying on uncalibrated carbon dates, are still used to define borders between periods. Have all the dates been calibrated and updated?
We'll see.