Inherited age of floating charcoal fragments in a sand-bed stream, Macdonald River, NSW, Australia: Implications for radiocarbon dating of sediments

Russell Blong; Kirstie Fryirs; Rachel Wood; Fleur King; Larissa Schneider; Emilie Dotte-Sarout; Stewart Fallon; Richard Gillespie; Qianyang Chen; Rebecca Esmay

doi:10.1177/09596836231176502

Inherited age of floating charcoal fragments in a sand-bed stream, Macdonald River, NSW, Australia: Implications for radiocarbon dating of sediments

Russell Blong^*, Kirstie Fryirs, Rachel Wood, Fleur King, Larissa Schneider, Emilie Dotte-Sarout, Stewart Fallon, Richard Gillespie, Qianyang Chen, Rebecca Esmay

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Natural Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Radiocarbon dates on multiple individual charcoal fragments floating together down the Macdonald River, New South Wales, Australia, have calibrated ages spanning >1700 years. Partial explanations of this range of inherited ages can be attributed to the inbuilt age of living biomass, charcoalisation conditions, hillslope transport and storage and/or valley floor (fluvial) transport and storage, but the contribution of each of these components can be constrained only rarely. These results caution against using radiocarbon dating of charcoal as the sole dating technique to interpret Late-Holocene sedimentary histories. These findings also show that it is unlikely that deposit age has a dependable relationship to charcoal age.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1154-1159
Number of pages	6
Journal	Holocene
Volume	33
Issue number	9
Early online date	30 May 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836231176502
Publication status	Published - Sept 2023

Bibliographical note

Copyright the Author(s) 2023. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

Keywords

charcoalisation
environmental reconstruction
inbuilt age
inherited age
radiocarbon dating
sedimentary sequences

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10.1177/09596836231176502

Publisher version (open access)Final published version, 764 KBLicence: CC BY

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title = "Inherited age of floating charcoal fragments in a sand-bed stream, Macdonald River, NSW, Australia: Implications for radiocarbon dating of sediments",

abstract = "Radiocarbon dates on multiple individual charcoal fragments floating together down the Macdonald River, New South Wales, Australia, have calibrated ages spanning >1700 years. Partial explanations of this range of inherited ages can be attributed to the inbuilt age of living biomass, charcoalisation conditions, hillslope transport and storage and/or valley floor (fluvial) transport and storage, but the contribution of each of these components can be constrained only rarely. These results caution against using radiocarbon dating of charcoal as the sole dating technique to interpret Late-Holocene sedimentary histories. These findings also show that it is unlikely that deposit age has a dependable relationship to charcoal age.",

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AU - Wood, Rachel

AU - King, Fleur

AU - Schneider, Larissa

AU - Dotte-Sarout, Emilie

AU - Fallon, Stewart

AU - Gillespie, Richard

AU - Chen, Qianyang

AU - Esmay, Rebecca

N1 - Copyright the Author(s) 2023. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.

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N2 - Radiocarbon dates on multiple individual charcoal fragments floating together down the Macdonald River, New South Wales, Australia, have calibrated ages spanning >1700 years. Partial explanations of this range of inherited ages can be attributed to the inbuilt age of living biomass, charcoalisation conditions, hillslope transport and storage and/or valley floor (fluvial) transport and storage, but the contribution of each of these components can be constrained only rarely. These results caution against using radiocarbon dating of charcoal as the sole dating technique to interpret Late-Holocene sedimentary histories. These findings also show that it is unlikely that deposit age has a dependable relationship to charcoal age.

AB - Radiocarbon dates on multiple individual charcoal fragments floating together down the Macdonald River, New South Wales, Australia, have calibrated ages spanning >1700 years. Partial explanations of this range of inherited ages can be attributed to the inbuilt age of living biomass, charcoalisation conditions, hillslope transport and storage and/or valley floor (fluvial) transport and storage, but the contribution of each of these components can be constrained only rarely. These results caution against using radiocarbon dating of charcoal as the sole dating technique to interpret Late-Holocene sedimentary histories. These findings also show that it is unlikely that deposit age has a dependable relationship to charcoal age.

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Inherited age of floating charcoal fragments in a sand-bed stream, Macdonald River, NSW, Australia: Implications for radiocarbon dating of sediments

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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