Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Measuring Carbon-based Contaminant Mineralization Using Combined CO2 Flux and Radiocarbon Analyses
Published on: October 21, 2016
Changes in North Atlantic radiocarbon reservoir ages during the Allerød and Younger Dryas
Stein Bondevik1, Jan Mangerud, Hilary H Birks
1Department of Geology, University of Tromsø, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway. stein.bondevik@ig.uit.no
Abstract:
Estimates of the radiocarbon age of seawater are required in correlations between marine and terrestrial records of the late Quaternary climate. We radiocarbon-dated marine shells and terrestrial plant remains deposited in two bays on Norway's west coast between 11,000 and 14,000 years ago, a time of large and abrupt climatic changes that included the Younger Dryas (YD) cold episode. The radiocarbon age difference between the shells and the plants showed that sea surface reservoir ages increased from 400 to 600 years in the early YD, stabilized for 900 years, and dropped by 300 years within a century across the YD-Holocene transition.
Related Concept Videos
Atomic Radii and Effective Nuclear Charge
Types of Radioactivity
Alpha (α) decay is the emission of an α particle from the nucleus. For example, polonium-210 undergoes α decay:
Nuclear Stability
To hold positively charged protons together in the...
Radioactive Decay and Radiometric Dating
Nuclear Power
Nuclear Fuels
Nuclear fuel consists of a fissile isotope, such as uranium-235, which must be present in sufficient quantity to provide a...
Nuclear Transmutation

