4.7 Article

Quantifying seasonal precipitation using high-resolution carbon isotope analyses in evergreen wood

Journal

GEOCHIMICA ET COSMOCHIMICA ACTA
Volume 75, Issue 22, Pages 7291-7303

Publisher

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2011.08.002

Keywords

-

Funding

  1. NSF [ARC-08-04573]
  2. DOE/BES [DE-FG02-09ER16002]
  3. U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) [DE-FG02-09ER16002] Funding Source: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
  4. Directorate For Geosciences
  5. Office of Polar Programs (OPP) [0804573] Funding Source: National Science Foundation

Ask authors/readers for more resources

High-resolution natural abundance stable carbon isotope analyses across annual growth rings in evergreen trees reveal a cyclic increase and decrease in the measured carbon isotopic composition (delta C-13), but the causes of this pattern are poorly understood. We compiled new and published high-resolution delta C-13 data from across annual growth rings of 33 modern evergreen trees from 10 genera and 15 globally distributed sites to quantify the parameters that affect the observed delta C-13 pattern. Across a broad range of latitude, temperature, and precipitation regimes, we found that the average, measured seasonal change in delta C-13 (Delta delta C-13(meas), parts per thousand) within tree rings of evergreen species reflects changes in the carbon isotopic composition of atmospheric carbon dioxide (Delta delta C-13(CO2))and changes in seasonal precipitation (Delta P) according to the following equation: Delta delta C-13(meas) = Delta delta C-13(CO2)-0.82(Delta P) + 0.73; R-2 = 0.96. Seasonal changes in temperature, pCO(2), and light levels were not found to significantly affect Delta delta C-13(meas). We propose that this relationship can be used to quantify seasonal patterns in paleoprecipitation from intra-ring profiles of delta C-13 measured from non-permineralized, fossil wood. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.7
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available