Charcoal and mollusc shell 14C-dating of the Dunaszekcső loess record, Hungary

Újvári, Gábor and Molnár, Mihály and Páll-Gergely, Barna (2016) Charcoal and mollusc shell 14C-dating of the Dunaszekcső loess record, Hungary. QUATERNARY GEOCHRONOLOGY, 35. pp. 43-53. ISSN 1871-1014 (Submitted)

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Abstract

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating of charcoals and 10 mollusc species (þ2 identified at the family level) yield 64 new ages from the Dunaszekcs}o loess record, Hungary. Charcoal 14C ages are found to be protocol-dependent, with ages obtained from the high temperature (800 �C) fraction of the two-step combustion (TSC) protocol being always the oldest and likely most reliable. One step combustion (OSC) at 1000 �C produces comparable ages with those obtained from the low temperature (400 �C) fraction of the TSC protocol. Discrepancies between the ABA-TSC400 and TSC800 ages become larger for older, and less well-preserved charcoal fragments. Testing of shell ages against those of charcoals reveals that Succineidae sp., Chondrula tridens, Trochulus hispidus and members of the family Clausiliidae yield 14C ages that are statistically indistinguishable from charcoals recovered from the same stratigraphic interval, or with the ABA-TSC800 charcoal age. Thus, these species show great potential for creating accurate and precise chronologies for loess records within the useful range (<~40 ka) of 14Cdating of land snails. Conservative estimates of 95% uncertainties of the resulting Bayesian age-depth models are in the range of 500e800 yr. However, these uncertainties are strongly dependent on the number of dates available and the resolution of sampling, but they are usually well below those of luminescence chronologies.

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