Improved age modelling approaches as exemplified by the revised chronology for the Central European varved lake Soppensee

One of the key factors in understanding past climate change is the development of robust age models that have sufficient chronological precision for comparing different palaeoclimate archives, while retaining accuracy. Recent developments in Bayesian age modelling are applied here to the Swiss varve lake, Soppensee. We develop revised age models for this sequence using the available stratigraphic information to constrain the calibrated radiocarbon ages. We begin by using stratigraphical order as the only constraint and then sequentially increase the information incorporated into the model, using relative varve age, sample depth, and varying depositional models. Within this Bayesian framework, we develop internally robust models that significantly improve the dating precision and are applicable to both varved and non-varved sequences. We then compare the model output to wider chronological information, such as the age of the Laacher See Tephra in order to test the model accuracy. The results of this exercise suggest that these methods can be used to build very reliable improved age models in a variety of records. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.