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Helium-Uranium Dating of Corals from Middle Pleistocene Barbados Reef Tracts1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Michael L. Bender ,
F.T. Taylor  and
R.K. Matthews
Michael L. Bender
Affiliation:
Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, Palisades, New York 10964 the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York 11790 USA
F.T. Taylor
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02881 USA
R.K. Matthews
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02881 USA
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Abstract

By He-U dating of corals from elevated Pleistocene reef tracts on Barbados, we have extended back to the Middle Pleistocene the high sea stand chronology previously deduced by Th230-U dating. Six samples from the first major reef tract complex older than the 200,000-yr complex gave ages of 350,000 ± 25,000 yr B.P. Two corals from the crest of Second High Cliff, an unusually large escarpment occurring approximately midway in the terrace sequence, gave concordant ages of 480,000 and 500,000 yr. Unrecrystallized corals from older reefs gave ages ranging back to 650,000 yr.

The results date episodes of high sea stands at 350,000 and 500,000 yr B.P.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , June 1973 , pp. 142 - 146
Copyright
University of Washington

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Footnotes

1

Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory Contribution No. 1811

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