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Regional variation in modern radiocarbon ages and the hard-water effects in Lakes Michigan and Huron

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Abstract

Eight new radiocarbon ages, all determined by accelerator mass spectrometry, on modern (pre-bomb) mollusks have been added to similar data provided from three samples in the Lake Michigan and Huron basins. These data confirm the existence of a substantial hard water effect correction ranging from about 250 years to 500 years in these lakes. They also show that the magnitude of these corrections form a spatially coherent pattern that can be related to the pattern of outcrop of Paleozoic (radioactively inert) carbonates that surround the basins and the pattern of circulation within the basins.

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Moore, T., Rea, D.K. & Godsey, H. Regional variation in modern radiocarbon ages and the hard-water effects in Lakes Michigan and Huron. Journal of Paleolimnology 20, 347–351 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007920723163

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