Mainz 2026 – scientific programme
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MS: Fachverband Massenspektrometrie
MS 7: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
MS 7.1: Invited Talk
Thursday, March 5, 2026, 14:30–15:00, N 6
Turning Atmospheric Radiocabon Variability into a Tool: High-Precision Tree-Ring Records for Solar Activity and Cross-Dating — •Lukas Wacker1, Nicolas Brehm1, Macus Christl1, Hans-Arno Synal1, Charlotte L. Pearson2, Kurt Nicolussi3, Thomas Pilcher3, Alex Bayliss4, and David Brown5 — 1Ion Beam Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, Department of Physics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland — 2Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA — 3Department of Geography, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria — 4Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK — 5School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University, Belfast, UK
Atmospheric radiocarbon (14C) concentrations over the last 10 000 years vary primarily due to changes in cosmogenic 14C production driven by solar activity and Earth*s magnetic dipole moment. These variations complicate conventional radiocarbon dating, but also offer the opportunity to reconstruct past solar activity. Recent advances in state-of-the-art AMS systems developed at ETH Zürich now allow efficient production of highly precise, annually resolved 14C time series from tree rings. In this contribution, we present what can be inferred about past solar activity from such annually resolved 14C records. We further demonstrate that the fine structure in atmospheric 14C is not only a bane for precise 14C dating, but can become a powerful gain when exploited for dating other 14C records and for precisely synchronizing paleoarchives containing cosmogenic radionuclides.
Keywords: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry; Radiocarbon; Dating; Solar Activity; Paleo record