We are pleased to announce that the first 234U/230Th dating of stalagmites from caves located at the northwestern Amazon Basin in Ecuador and Northern Hungary were successfully accomplished in our laboratory expanding our capabilities for studying past climates employing terrestrial archives.
Preliminary U concentrations were determined in our speleothems allowing us to constraint the amount required for subsequent dating. Samples were drilled along the central axis and underwent a chemical preparation consisting in a complete dissolution of the drilled material, spiking with our triple spike solution with known U-233, U-236 and Th-229 content, and a final separation of U and Th on specific ion exchange resin.
Finally, the prepared samples were measured in our recently installed Neptune Plus Multicollector Inductively Coupled Plasma ion source Mass Spectrometer (MC-ICP-MS) and results calibrated for a final corrected age.
Separation using a specific U-Th ion-exchange resin
Evaporation of the collected U and Th fractions
Stalagmite from Ecuadorian Western Amazon
Age-Depth model for Ecuadorian stalagmite
These first results will equip our group to examine more closely the past wet events in the western Amazon Basin during the mid-Holocene and Last Interglacial in Central Europe.
