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230Th/U Dating of Frozen Peat, Bol'shoy Lyakhovsky Island (Northern Siberia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Lutz Schirrmeister ,
Deniz Oezen  and
Mebus A Geyh
Lutz Schirrmeister*
Affiliation:
Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Research unit Potsdam Telegraphenberg A 43, D-14473 Potsdam, PF 600149, Germany
Deniz Oezen
Affiliation:
Leibniz Instite for Applied Geoscience (GGA), Stilleweg 2, D-30655 Hannover, Germany
Mebus A Geyh
Affiliation:
Leibniz Instite for Applied Geoscience (GGA), Stilleweg 2, D-30655 Hannover, Germany
*
*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Ischirrmeister@awi-potsdam.de.
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Abstract

The chronology of Quaternary paleoenvironment and climate in northeastern Siberia is poorly understood due to a lack of reliable numerical age determinations. The best climatic archives are ice-rich permafrost sequences, which are widely distributed in northeastern Siberia. For this study, 230Th/U-ages were determined by thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) from frozen peat in a permafrost deposit at the southern cliff of the Bol'shoy Lyakhovsky Island (New Siberian Archipelago), west of the Zimov'e River. These yielded a Pre-Eemian “isochron”-corrected 230Th/U-age of 200,900±3400 yr. This result is reliable because permafrost deposits behave as closed systems with respect to uranium and thorium. Our findings suggest that 230Th/U dating of frozen peat in permafrost deposits is a useful tool for the reconstruction of the Middle Quaternary environment of northern Siberia and of the whole Arctic.

Keywords

SiberiapermafrostgeochronologyUranium-series disequilibrium datinguraniumthoriumpeatMiddle Pleistocene
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , March 2002 , pp. 253 - 258
Copyright
University of Washington

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