Carbon-14 and tritium measurement by means of bremsstrahlung emissions

The feasibility of measuring carbon-14 and tritium in vivo has been demonstrated in the rat; thin scintillation detectors were used for the measurement of bremsstrahlung produced by these soft beta emitters. Measurements of tritium in vivo are limited to the study of surface phenomena, whereas bremsstrahlung produced by carbon-14 may be detected from depths of several centimeters.     

Conversion of thyroxine to triiodothyronine in normal human subjects

The conversion of thyroxine to triiodothyronine, previously demonstrated in athyreotic human subjects, has been investigated in normal subjects who were given intravenous injections of purified thyroxine labeled with carbon-14 in ring A and in the alanine side chain. Evidence for the conversion of T4 to T3 was provided by the finding of carbon-14 in the T3 fraction isolated from serums. It is estimated that an appreciable fraction of T4 may be transformed to T3 in normal man.     

Bacterioplankton: a sink for carbon in a coastal marine plankton community

Recent determinations of high production rates (up to 30 percent of primary production in surface waters) implicate free-living marine bacterioplankton as a link in a "microbial loop" that supplements phytoplankton as food for herbivores. An enclosed water column of 300 cubic meters was used to test the microbial loop hypothesis by following the fate of carbon-14-labeled bacterioplankton for over 50 days. Only 2 percent of the label initially fixed from carbon-14-labeled glucose by bacteria was present in larger organisms after 13 days, at which time about 20 percent of the total label added remained in the particulate fraction. Most of the label appeared to pass directly from particles smaller than 1 micrometer (heterotrophic bacterioplankton and some bacteriovores) to respired labeled carbon dioxide or to regenerated dissolved organic carbon-14. Secondary (and, by implication, primary) production by organisms smaller than 1 micrometer may not be an important food source in marine food chains. Bacterioplankton can be a sink for carbon in planktonic food webs and may serve principally as agents of nutrient regeneration rather than as food.     

Atmospheric transfer of carbon-14: a problem in fungus translocation studies

The carbon-14-labeled carbon dioxide that is released by respiration after glucose labeled with carbon-14 is applied to fungal mycelium can be reabsorbed in highly significant amounts by distant mycelium and agar media in the same petri dishes. Atmospheric transfer of carbon-14 must be considered when using labeled organic compounds to study translocation in fungi.     

Middle holocene age of the sunnyvale human skeleton

A morphologically modern human skeleton from Sunnyvale, California, previously dated by aspartic acid racemization to be approximately 70,000 years old and by uranium series isotopic ratios to be 8300 and 9000 years old, appears to be younger when dated by the carbon-14 method. Four carbon-14 determinations made by both decay and direct counting on three organic fractions of postcranial bone support a middle Holocene age assignment for the skeleton, probably in the range of 3500 to 5000 carbon-14 years before the present. This dating evidence is consistent with the geologic, archeological, and anthropometric relationships of the burial as well as previously determined carbon-14 determinations on associated materials.     

Molybdenum as a Factor Limiting Primary Productivity in Castle Lake,California

A trace-element deficiency is evident from carbon-14 bioassays of Castle Lake's natural phytoplankton populations. Increase in photosynthetic rates with the addition of molybdic acid or sodium molybdate has been demonstrated throughout the year. It is likely that other trace elements may also be found to be limiting factors in lakes having a limited watershed.     

Man-made carbon-14 in deep Pacific waters: transport by biological skeletal material

Calcareous particles present in Pacific waters at depths of 50 to 3500 meters were collected by filtering seawater through spongin matrix. The specific activity of carbon-14 could be measured in two of these collections from depths of 2300 and 3500 meters. The ratios of carbon-14 to carbon-12 correspond to values observed in surface waters in recent years as a result of the addition of manmade carbon-14, thus indicating that the calcareous particles resulted from recent biological productivity. The results are related to the mean settling rates and the sizes and dissolution rates of biogenic calcareous particles in transit through a seawater column.     

Radiocarbon Dating: Fictitious Results with Mollusk Shells

Evidence is presented to show that modern mollusk shells from rivers can have anomalous radiocarbon ages, owing mainly to incorporation of inactive (carbon-14-deficient) carbon from humus, probably through the food web, as well as by the pathway of carbon dioxide from humus decay. The resultant effect, in addition to the variable contributions of atmospheric carbon dioxide, fermentative carbon dioxide from bottom muds, and, locally, of carbonate carbon from dissolving limestones, makes the initial carbon-14-activity of ancient fresh-water shell indeterminate, but within limits. Consequent errors of shell radiocarbon dates may be as large as several thousand years for river shells.     

Thyroxine: convesion to triiodothyronine by isolated perfused rat heart

Thyroxine labeled with carbon-14 and iodine-125 was perfused through surviving rat hearts. Only when unlabeled triiodothyronine was added as a carrier could the newly formed doubly labeled triiodothyronine be isolated. The fact that this triiodothyronine was labeled with the correct ratio of carbon-14 to iodine-125 indicated that it originated from thyroxine. Approximately 5 percent of the initial carbon-14 radioactivity was found in the recovered triiodothyronine.     

Genetic and somatic effects of carbon-14

On the basis of information about carbon-14 given by Libby, calculations are made of the predicted genetic and somatic effects of the carbon-14 produced by the testing of nuclear weapons. It is concluded that 1 year of testing (30 megatons of fission plus fusion) is expected to cause in the world (stimated future number of births per year 5 times the present number) an estimated total of about 55,000 children with gross physical or mental defects, 170,000 stillbirths and childhood deaths, and 425,000 embryonic and neonatal deaths. (There is an unknown amount of overlap of these three categories.) These numbers are about 17 times the numbers usually estimated as the probable effects of the fallout fission products from 1 year of testing. In addition, the somatic effects of bomb-test carbon-14 are expected to be about equal to those of fission products, including strontium-90, with respect to leukemia and bone cancer and greater than those of fission products with respect to diseases resulting from radiation damage to tissues other than bone tissue and bone marrow. All of the estimated numbers are subject to great uncertainty; they may be as much as 5 times too high or 5 times too low. The uncertainty in the estimation of the relative effects of carbon-14 and fission products in world-wide fallout is not so great.     

Organic carbon-14 in the Amazon river system

Coarse and fine suspended particulate organic materials and dissolved humic and fulvic acids transported by the Amazon River all contain bomb-produced carbon-14, indicating relatively rapid turnover of the parent carbon pools. However, the carbon-14 contents of these coexisting carbon forms are measurably different and may reflect varying degrees of retention by soils in the drainage basin.     

Proposed system of terminology for preparations of adrenocorticotropic hormone

The isolation and characterization of gelatin from 12,000-year-old deer antlers is described. Use of gelatin from ancient bones for carbon-14 dating may improve the accuracy of the dating procedure because gelatin is not likely to be contaminated by extraneous carbon.     

Banded corals: changes in oceanic carbon-14 during the little ice age

Radiocarbon analyses and stable isotope measurements are presented foro recent cores of banded corals from the Florida Straits. These values provide a record of variations in the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the dissolved inorganic carbon in the surface waters of the Gulf Stream from A.D. 1642 to 1800. An increase in the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio of 7 per mil for coral growth during the early 1700's was most likely induced by an increase in the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio of 20 per mil in the atmospheric carbon dioxide that occurred at about 1700. The ratios of oxygen 18 to oxygen-16 in these coral bands show a small decrease of a water temperature ( approximately 1 degrees C) during the latter part of the Little Ice Age (1700 to 1725). These results support the hypothesis that the increase in atmospheric carbon-14 at about 1700, and possibly the temperature change as well, was caused by a decrease in solar activity (Maunder sunspot minimum).     

碳-14考古断代原理

放射性元素碳 - 1 4的半衰期为 5 730年。自然界中活着的生物体中碳 - 1 4含量应为定值 ,生物死亡之后 ,碳 - 1 4含量按一定规律衰减。考古学家根据死亡后生物体内碳 - 1 4含量相对于其原始量的变化来断定它所属年代。     

Atmospheric radiocarbon calibration to 45,000 yr B.P.: late glacial fluctuations and cosmogenic isotope production

More than 250 carbon-14 accelerator mass spectrometry dates of terrestrial macrofossils from annually laminated sediments from Lake Suigetsu (Japan) provide a first atmospheric calibration for almost the total range of the radiocarbon method (45,000 years before the present). The results confirm the (recently revised) floating German pine chronology and are consistent with data from European and marine varved sediments, and combined uranium-thorium and carbon-14 dating of corals up to the Last Glacial Maximum. The data during the Glacial show large fluctuations in the atmospheric carbon-14 content, related to changes in global environment and in cosmogenic isotope production.     

Carbon-14 time scale extended: comparison of chronologies

Thermal diffusion isotopic enrichment of carbon-14 has extended the radiocarbon dating range to about 75,000 years ago. Twenty-eight samples obtained up to June 1976, mainly from northwest Europe, were dated. Consideration of the basic assumptions of carbon-14 dating and of the sources of contamination indicates that the ages are generally reliable. Together with the pollen analytic and stratigraphic the dates yield a more detailed radiocarbon time scale for climatic variations in northwest Europe, showing three early glacial interstades. The radiocarbon time scale agrees with the Camp Century chronology and with the thorium-230 ages of corals representing high sea level stands on New Guinea. Ther is a discrepancy between the radiocarbon time scale and the deep-sea chronology, which may be due to correlation errors. With a modified interpretation of the correlation, all four time scales agree within the estimated experimental uncertainties of the dating techniques used.     

Earthquake dating: an application of carbon-14 atom counting

Milligram-sized specimens of detrital charcoal from soil layers associated with prehistoric earthquakes on the Wasatch fault in Utah have been dated by direct atom counting of carbon-14 with a tandem Van de Graaff accelerator. The measured ratios of carbon-14 to carbon-12 correspond to ages of 7800, 8800, and 9000 years with uncertainties of +/- 600 years.     

Early holocene ooids in modern littoral sands reworked from a coastal terrace, southern Tunisia

Locally, Early Holocene (Atlanticum) o?ids, dated with carbon-14, form the major compound in the Recent near-shore sediments of the Gulf of Gabes (southern Tunisia, Mediterranean Sea). They are reworked from coastal o?lites and are not forming today. The Holocene o?lites crop out at the seaward side of a coastal terrace, while the o?litic rocks from the inland side give a straightforward carbon-14 age of 20,000 to 30,000 years before the present. The entire terrace was formerly dated as Tyrrhenian III (= last interglacial time).     

Synchronous radiocarbon and climate shifts during the last deglaciation

Radiocarbon data from the Cariaco Basin provide calibration of the carbon-14 time scale across the period of deglaciation (15,000 to 10, 000 years ago) with resolution available previously only from Holocene tree rings. Reconstructed changes in atmospheric carbon-14 are larger than previously thought, with the largest change occurring simultaneously with the sudden climatic cooling of the Younger Dryas event. Carbon-14 and published beryllium-10 data together suggest that concurrent climate and carbon-14 changes were predominantly the result of abrupt shifts in deep ocean ventilation.     

14C-dead living biomass: evidence for microbial assimilation of ancient organic carbon during shale weathering

Prokaryotes have been cultured from a modern weathering profile developed on a approximately 365-million-year-old black shale that use macromolecular shale organic matter as their sole organic carbon source. Using natural-abundance carbon-14 analysis of membrane lipids, we show that 74 to 94% of lipid carbon in these cultures derives from assimilation of carbon-14-free organic carbon from the shale. These results reveal that microorganisms enriched from shale weathering profiles are able to use a macromolecular and putatively refractory pool of ancient organic matter. This activity may facilitate the oxidation of sedimentary organic matter to inorganic carbon when sedimentary rocks are exposed by erosion. Thus, microorganisms may play a more active role in the geochemical carbon cycle than previously recognized, with profound implications for controls on the abundance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere over geologic time.