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Capabilities of the New SUERC 5MV AMS Facility for 14C Dating

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

S Xu ,
R Anderson ,
C Bryant ,
G T Cook ,
A Dougans ,
S Freeman ,
P Naysmith ,
C Schnabel  and
E M Scott
S Xu*
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
R Anderson
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
C Bryant
Affiliation:
NERC Radiocarbon Laboratory, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
G T Cook
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
A Dougans
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
S Freeman
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
P Naysmith
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
C Schnabel
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
E M Scott
Affiliation:
Department of Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QW, United Kingdom.
*
Corresponding author. Email: s.xu@suerc.gla.ac.uk.
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Abstract

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A new National Electrostatic Corporation (NEC) 5MV accelerator mass spectrometer became operational at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) in July 2002. It has 2 Cs sputter negative ion sources: a 134-sample source (S1) for the routine measurement of all species, and a hybrid source (S2) with 40 spaces for radiocarbon measurements with either graphite or CO2 samples. A number of performance tests on graphite samples have been carried out on both sources. A precison of better than 0.3% is feasible for modern samples on a routine basis. The 14C background of the machine and the graphite preparation process blank are 0.04 ± 0.01 and 0.16 ± 0.05 pMC, respectively, indicating that 14C dating back to ~50 kyr BP is possible. The normalized 14C values for a series of reference materials agree well with the IAEA, TIRI, and FIRI consensus values. Routine measurement of 14C has been underway since May 2003. Preliminary results of performance tests on the CO2 gas ion source are also reported.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 46 , Issue 1: Proceedings of the 18th International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 1 of 2), Conference Editors: Nancy Beavan Athfield, Rodger J Sparks , 2004 , pp. 59 - 64
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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