High precision radiocarbon measurements (±2.5‰ STD) were carried out on absolutely dated European oak material. These showed that significant short-term atmospheric 14C variations of up to 2 percent occurred between AD 200 and 800. These changes, reflecting a 150-to 180-year periodicity, seem to correlate with the average sunspot activity around that time. In comparison with results obtained by other authors, a very regular pattern of natural atmospheric 14C variations is exhibited.

The loessic deposits along with their palaeosols of the Kashmir Valley have been 14C dated using both organic and carbonate fractions. The 14C dates on both the fractions show good concordance. The 14C dates indicate that the last deglaciation in Kashmir (34° N) already started CA 18,000 ± 1000 BP at CA 1600m and CA 15,000 BP at CA 3000m altitude and thus support the recent global evidence of deglaciation having started several millennia before the Holocene.

Radiocarbon dating of mollusks and barnacles from fossil shoreline deposits in the Persian Gulf and on the coast of Iranian Makran is being used to assess the extent and rate of recent crustal deformation in the area. Samples are selected with the help of x-ray diffraction and of light and scanning electron microscopy; whenever possible, two or more ages are determined for each locality on monospecific samples. Age/height values have been used to compute local uplift rates by allowing for sea-level fluctuations, but eustatic controversy can be avoided by limiting the analysis to fault chronology and to relative vertical movements between dated sections. Short counting times on large, carefully pretreated samples would supply the numerous, cheap, low-resolution ages required to follow up the preliminary results obtained by the survey.

At the Ninth International Radiocarbon Conference a paper was presented concerning possible short-term 14C variations in 4000-year-old red deer antlers (Cervus elaphus) found in Neolithic flint mines in Norfolk, England (Burleigh and Hewson, 1980). It was argued, on archaeologic grounds, that the true age of the samples varied by a few years at most. Their radiocarbon ages, however, varied by a considerably greater amount than could be explained by the errors in the measurements. Duplication of the measurements confirmed this unexpected variation.

Farmer and Baxter (1972) claimed a significant correlation of atmospheric 14C levels in the northern hemisphere with sunspot number based on radiocarbon assay of single tree rings for the period 1829 to 1865. In contrast, Stuiver (1978) stated that a series of single-year Douglas Fir measurements did not show a statistically significant periodicity.

This paper reports measurements made on a series of single-year dendrochronologic samples of approximately the same age as the red deer antlers, which have been carried out at the British Museum Research Laboratory. The results show that the variation in 14C between rings is not statistically significant; some other explanation must be sought for the anomalous antler measurements.

There are extended wind-blown sand territories in the northeastern part of the Great Hungarian Plain. Wind-blown sand migration periods were distineuished by means of radiocarbon age determination of charcoal samples found in the same type of a thin soil layer of chernozem character in different sand dune exposures. The ages of the samples were determined by proportional counter, and are around 12 000 years BP. This thin fossil soil layer, which is regionally spread in the northeast Hungarian wind-blown sand areas, presents a chronological mark between the blown sand forms evolved in the last glacial period and in the Holocene.

The 14C age of charcoal and wood from Lebanon and central Europe is compared partly with the dendrochronologically determined age of the samples and partly with the archaeologically expected value. While the dendrologic values approximately confirm the correction curve of Ralph, Michael, and Han (1973), charcoal of burned layers seemes to be generally 2 to 3 centuries older than expected from contemporary archaeologically retrieved materials.

The secular patterns of Δ and δ13C measured in wood cellulose are compared with a palaeotemperature index published for the immediate growth region. 14C enrichment shows an overall decrease of ca 20% (Δ) during the 18th and 19th centuries with shorter term (decade) variations superimposed on the general trend. Measured Δ values correlate significantly with the average mean summer temperatures and indicate a linear coefficient of ca − 10.2% °C–1. Short-term variations in the natural concentration of 14C which are closely related to climatic change may reflect the latitudinal dependence for atmospheric mixing.

The secular trend in δ13C covers a range of 2% but variations of this magnitude reflect influences other than those directly associated with climatic change, eg, possible assimilation of recycled biospheric CO2 during early life and post AD 1850 anthropogenic effects. No evidence was found to suggest a significant correlation between δ13C and the mean atmospheric temperature during summer growth periods.

An 18O/16O versus 14C age curve was constructed for unrecrystallized Holocene marine shell samples from Israel that were shown to be homogeneous populations. The surprisingly large variation in the oxygen isotopic composition (1.2‰) between 2600 and 4000 years ago is most probably due to variations in the isotopic composition of the water. This implies that either the excess of evaporation over precipitation or the Nile river discharge must have varied significantly during the Holocene.

An MP tandem Van de Graaff accelerator at the University of Rochester has been employed since May 1977 to detect 14C in various terrestrial samples. The carbon sample sizes required are 1mg or less. Dating accuracies based on reproducibility now approach (± 80 years). Measurements have been made on 1850 wood, Australian sucrose, a carbon sample from Mt Shasta, a baby woolly mammoth, and an Egyptian bull mummy wrapping.

Pollen analysis as well as 18O/16O results on lake marl show that the Younger Dryas climatic period, between about 11,000 and 10,300 bp, was the last vigorous cold phase of the Würm Glacial. Detailed 14C analyses from a peat bog near Wachseldorn (Switzerland) point to a 14C anomaly in this period. Further indication of a 14C anomaly is given by the observation that, during the Younger Dryas period, the sedimentation rates in several lakes apparently were higher than in adjacent periods; an explanation might be that the 14C time scale was compressed between 11,000 and 10,000 bp, ie, the atmospheric 14C/C ratio varied. If real, this suggested 14C variation would probably be connected to the climatic events during this transition period from Later Glacial to Postglacial.

A description is given of an accelerator-based radioisotope measuring system, being supplied to the Universities of Arizona and Toronto and in part to the University of Oxford. This system will be capable of measuring 14C/12C and 13C/12C ratios in milligram samples of cracked acetylene. At present 200µg of carbon obtained from cracked acetylene appears to be adequate for an isotopic ratio determination. Previous performance and new calculations indicate that a precision better than 1 percent will be achieved in a half-hour period only limited by counting statistics. A precision of 0.2 percent will be obtained in a ten-hour period. Using a carbon sample with an age greater than 60,000 years, the measured background 14C/12C ratio will be less than 0.07 percent of modern.

We have determined the 81Kr activity to be (0.067 ± 0.003) decay/min. 1 krypton. Using this activity in conjunction with our new measurement of the 80Kr(n/γ)81Kr reaction cross-section of (12 ± 4)b, we infer that the 81Kr activity is 1.5-2.0 times that which would be calculated using the current cosmic ray flux. This implies that the average cosmic ray intensity in the atmosphere during the 81Kr life-time was greater than the current intensity, a fact that has implications for the 14C time scale.

A constraint on radiocarbon reservoir models is that the DC gain of a system (system transfer function at zero frequency) should equal the equilibrium ratio of the atmospheric radiocarbon mass to the production rate. The simple one-box model is essentially a “black box” but the value of the single residence time is theoretically equal to the DC gain. Using a sunspot-production rate algorithm as the forcing function, predictions of the one-box model match the 14C data from ad 1700 to 1900 better than the 3-box, 5-box and box-diffusion models. The more complex models tend to pile up 14C in the atmosphere because their DC gains are too high, and they over-attenuate the de Vries “wiggles”. The DC gains can be reduced to more acceptable levels by adjusting model parameters, particularly the sizes of the ocean reservoirs. Better fits to the “wiggles” are also obtained by parameter adjustment. Water content of deep-sea sediments constitutes an extra reservoir for dead carbon, and should help reduce system DC gain.

A standard heavy ion nuclear structure facility has been used to detect several long-lived radioisotopes by counting the accelerated ions. The problem of eliminating strong isobaric background beams has been solved by combining the energy loss dispersion through a uniform Al foil stack with the high momentum resolution of an Enge split-pole magnetic spectrograph. Radioisotope concentrations in the following ranges have been measured: 14C/12C = 10–12 to 10–13, 26Al/27Al = 10–10 to 10–12, 32Si/Si = 10–8 to 10–14, 36Cl/Cl = 10–8 to 10–11.

Some questions in the study of cosmic ray intensity (solar magnetic irregular solar activity, 14CO2, and 14CO in radiocarbon models, etc) on the basis of 14C concentration in the earth's atmosphere are considered.

In the two years since the first successful measurements of 14C by high energy mass spectrometry, the advantages and the basic techniques of the method have been sufficiently reported. They will not be repeated here. This paper describes the work being done at Oxford to fill the gap between demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach and the creation of a facility dedicated to the carbon dating of milligram samples.

The evolution of a tandem accelerator 14C dating system at Chalk River is recounted. Background problems and sources of instability are discussed and solutions are described. Details of sample chemistry and source preparation are presented.

The precision quoted on a radiocarbon date is often misleading. Improvement in the accuracy of measurement is discussed together with the use of appropriate precisions. The effect of high accuracy in 14C dating and meaningful precisions are illustrated and applied to radiocarbon time-scale calibration. Intercomparison of such calibrations reveals a significant continuous saw-tooth pattern of short-term periodicity.

Underlying principles and results are presented for our program to use isotopic and chemical methods to quantify anthropogenic and natural sources of carbonaceous pollutants. Radiocarbon data have been obtained with a specially-developed miniature low-level gas counting system which has permitted us to assay samples containing as little as 5mg carbon. Measurements of carbonaceous particles, using chemical selectivity and size fractionation to supplement the radiocarbon data, have revealed major impact from both fossil fuel and vegetative (contemporary) sources on urban aerosols. Residential wood-burning has been specifically identified as an important source of respirable particles. Current investigations are directed toward the carbonaceous gases and the application of the accelerator technique for the assay of radiocarbon in individual chemical fractions containing microgram quantities of carbon.

Direct detection of 14C using the Harwell 6MV Tandem accelerator has been achieved using a gaseous ion source. The implications of our results for the use of such sources in this role and for the machine, in general, are discussed.