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Updated: Aug 29, 2026

Sampling and Pretreatment of Tooth Enamel Carbonate for Stable Carbon and Oxygen Isotope Analysis
Published on: August 15, 2018
Box-modeling of bone and tooth phosphate oxygen isotope compositions as a function of environmental and physiological
C Langlois1, L Simon, Ch Lécuyer
1Laboratoire Paléoenvironnements et Paléobiosphere, UMR CNRS 5125, bâtiment Géode, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, 69622 Villeurbanne, France. cyril.langlois@univ-lyon1.fr
Abstract:
A time-dependent box model is developed to calculate oxygen isotope compositions of bone phosphate as a function of environmental and physiological parameters. Input and output oxygen fluxes related to body water and bone reservoirs are scaled to the body mass. The oxygen fluxes are evaluated by stoichiometric scaling to the calcium accretion and resorption rates, assuming a pure hydroxylapatite composition for the bone and tooth mineral. The model shows how the diet composition, body mass, ambient relative humidity and temperature may control the oxygen isotope composition of bone phosphate. The model also computes how bones and teeth record short-term variations in relative humidity, air temperature and delta18O of drinking water, depending on body mass. The documented diversity of oxygen isotope fractionation equations for vertebrates is accounted for by our model when for each specimen the physiological and diet parameters are adjusted in the living range of environmental conditions.
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