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Estimation of Age-Depth Relationships

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Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments

Part of the book series: Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research ((DPER,volume 5))

Abstract

An accurate and precise chronology is an essential pre-requisite for any palaeolimnological study. Chronologies give time-scales for events, and hence for rates for patterns and processes, and make it possible to compare and correlate events in different stratigraphical sequences. Palaeolimnology without chronology is history without dates.

As radiocarbon dating is so widely used in palaeolimnology, this chapter focuses on 14C dating, and its associated errors and the calibration of 14C ages to calibrated 14C ages. Calibration is an essential step before constructing age-depth models, There are several approaches to establishing age-depth relationships – linear interpolation, polynomial regression, splines, mixed-effect models, and Bayesian age-depth modelling involving chronological ordering or wiggle-matching. The critical question of model selection is discussed and future developments are outlined, along with details of available software.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Keith Bennett for generously providing the first draft of this chapter. We are also grateful to John Birks, Steve Juggins, Andy Lotter, and Richard Telford for comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. We thank Heather Ibbetson for kindly providing her case study. This is publication no. A336 from the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research.

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Author notes

  1. Einar Heegaard

    Present address: Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, Fanaflaten 4, Fana, N-5244, Norway

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK

    Maarten Blaauw

  2. Department of Biology and Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen, 7803, Bergen, N-5020, Norway

    Einar Heegaard

Authors
  1. Maarten Blaauw
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  2. Einar Heegaard
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Correspondence to Maarten Blaauw .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Allegaten 41, Bergen, 5007, Norway

    H. John B. Birks

  2. Dept. Geobiology, Lab. Palaeobotany and Palynology, University Utrecht, Budapestlaan 4, Utrecht, 3584 CD, Netherlands

    André F. Lotter

  3. , School of Geography,, Newcastle University, Daysh Building 14b, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom

    Steve Juggins

  4. Dept. Biology, Paleoecological Environmental, Queen's University, Kingston, K7L 3N6, Ontario, Canada

    John P. Smol

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Blaauw, M., Heegaard, E. (2012). Estimation of Age-Depth Relationships. In: Birks, H., Lotter, A., Juggins, S., Smol, J. (eds) Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments. Developments in Paleoenvironmental Research, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2745-8_12

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