I heard on the radio today about the use of peat cores for climate change measuring. ...
Presumably by measuring growth per year, which would correlate with tree rings, but have compaction issues (like ice cores) making older layers thinner. There could also be volcanic markers that can cross correlate, and certainly they should provide a strong 14C profile that could be matched\correlated with the tree rings.
Curiously, there is a bit of information on peat bogs in Japan correlating wood buried in the bogs and volcanic ash layers that also show up in Lake Suigetsu:
Estimation of eruptive ages of the late Pleistocene tephra layers derived from Daisen and Sambe Volcanoes based on AMS-14C dating of the moor sediments at Ohnuma Moor in the Chugoku Mountains, Western Japan PDF(3)
quote:
The Ohnuma Moor in the eastern part of the Chugoku Mountains, western Japan, is located about 80 km west of Daisen Volcano and more than 100 km west of Sambe Volcano. The moor has thick sediments more than 63 m that are composed of peat and organic clay and clay above about 17 m in depth, and of coarser silt, sand and gravels below. The finer part contains four tephra layers of Kikai-Akahoya Volcanic Ash Beds (K-Ah), Daisen-Misen Pumice Beds (MsP), Daisen Shitano-hoki Volcanic Ash Beds (Sh), and Aira-Tanzawa Volcanic Ash Beds (AT) in descending stratigraphic order. ...
... The eruptive age of SUk is thus estimated to be from 16,700 to 16,770 y BP (median: 16,740 y BP). We conclude that the eruptive age of SUk (= Sakate) is 16,740 160 y BP (19,966 305 cal. BP) from the effect of the sub-sampling error of 110 to 120 years. This estimated age is also concordant with the AMS-14C date measured in the OB-4 core.
The eruptive age of Sh are calculated to be 24,330 to 24,420 y BP (median: 24,370 y BP) by the same procedure as used for the estimation of an eruptive age of AT. It is estimated to be 24,370 120 y BP (29,320 412 cal. BP) considering the sub-sampling error of 70 to 80 years.
These ages are concordant with the age in Lake Suigetsu cores for both Sakate and Daisen-hoki.
Sounds interesting, and may be another tidbit of information of value to several sciences.
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