Radiocarbon Dating of a Speleothem Record of Paleoclimate for Angkor, Cambodia
- We report the chronological construction for the top portion of a speleothem, PC1, from southern Cambodia with the aim of reconstructing a continuous high-resolution climate record covering the fluorescence and decline of the medieval Khmer kingdom and its capital at Angkor (similar to 9th-15th centuries AD). Earlier attempts to date PC1 by the standard U-Th method proved unsuccessful. We have therefore dated this speleothem using radiocarbon. Fifty carbonate samples along the growth axis of PC1 were collected for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) analysis. Chronological reconstruction for PC1 was achieved using two different approaches described by Hua et al. (2012a) and Lechleitner et al. (2016a). Excellent concordance between the two age-depth models indicates that the top similar to 47 mm of PC1 grew during the last millennium with a growth hiatus during similar to 1250-1650 AD, resulting from a large change in measured C-14 values at 34.4-35.2 mm depth. The timing of the growth hiatus covers the period of decades-long droughtsWe report the chronological construction for the top portion of a speleothem, PC1, from southern Cambodia with the aim of reconstructing a continuous high-resolution climate record covering the fluorescence and decline of the medieval Khmer kingdom and its capital at Angkor (similar to 9th-15th centuries AD). Earlier attempts to date PC1 by the standard U-Th method proved unsuccessful. We have therefore dated this speleothem using radiocarbon. Fifty carbonate samples along the growth axis of PC1 were collected for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) analysis. Chronological reconstruction for PC1 was achieved using two different approaches described by Hua et al. (2012a) and Lechleitner et al. (2016a). Excellent concordance between the two age-depth models indicates that the top similar to 47 mm of PC1 grew during the last millennium with a growth hiatus during similar to 1250-1650 AD, resulting from a large change in measured C-14 values at 34.4-35.2 mm depth. The timing of the growth hiatus covers the period of decades-long droughts during the 14th-16th centuries AD indicated in regional climate records.…
| Author details: | Quan HuaORCiDGND, Duncan Cook, Jens Bernd FohlmeisterGND, Dan Penny, Paul BishopGND, Solomon BuckmanORCiD |
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| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2017.115 |
| ISSN: | 0033-8222 |
| ISSN: | 1945-5755 |
| Title of parent work (English): | Radiocarbon : an international journal of cosmogenic isotope research |
| Publisher: | The University of Arizona, Department of Geosciences |
| Place of publishing: | Tucson, Ariz. |
| Publication type: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Year of first publication: | 2017 |
| Publication year: | 2017 |
| Release date: | 2020/09/18 |
| Tag: | Angkor; Southeast Asia; chronological construction; radiocarbon; tropical speleothems |
| Volume: | 59 |
| Issue: | Special Issue 6 / 2 |
| Number of pages: | 18 |
| First page: | 1873 |
| Last Page: | 1890 |
| Funding institution: | for the Centre for Accelerator Science at ANSTO through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS); UK Arts and Humanities Research Council [119196]; Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC); German Science Foundation [FO809/2-1, FO809/4-1] |
| Organizational units: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
| Peer review: | Referiert |
| Publishing method: | Open Access |
| Open Access / Green Open-Access | |
| Institution name at the time of the publication: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Erd- und Umweltwissenschaften |
