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δ13C Variations in C3 Plants Over the Past 50,000 Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

S. W. Leavitt  and
S. R. Danzer
S. W. Leavitt
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 USA
S. R. Danzer
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 USA
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Abstract

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We examined three sets of data to determine if there are consistent changes in δ13C of C3 plants through time, under the hypothesis that environmental changes from glacial to postglacial may have caused such isotopic changes over the last 50 ka. The records of δ13C change in all types of plant data from Radiocarbon and from the University of Arizona Radiocarbon Laboratory archives both reveal significant decline of 0.8–1.0‰ in δ13C from pre- to post-10 ka BP averages. The δ13C of wood data alone from Radiocarbon shows a larger significant decline of 3.0‰, and twigs, leaves and Juniperus categories from the Arizona data individually show declines of 0.4–1.44‰. Peat and charcoal from both data sets show no significant mean δ13C differences. A highly constrained set of wood samples from the Great Lakes region spanning the last 12 ka show isotopic changes of ca. 3‰, but most of that variation apparently does not reflect global environmental changes.

Type
IV. Paleoclimatology
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 34 , Issue 3: Proceedings of the 14th International Radiocarbon Conference , 1992 , pp. 783 - 791
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

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