Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory

Department of Geology

Infrastructure

    Infrastructure Details

    Description

    The Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory in Lund performs dating on geological and archaeological samples. Examples of material that we date are wood, charcoal, peat, macrofossils, bone (including cremated bones) and marine shells. Furthermore, we also meassure radiocarbon for environmental monitoring, and to determine modern biomass content of different plasic materials.

    The analyses are based on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS).Natural 14C can be used in numerous applications, of which radiocarbon dating, with the possibility for dating back to about 50000 years, is among the best-known and most practiced applications.

    Equipment and resources

    SSAMS: ‘Single Stage Accelerator Mass Spectrometry’ for AMS-measurement of 14C. Supplier is National Electrostatic Corp. (NEC), Wisconsin, USA.

    AGE-3: automated graphitization equipment for graphitization of organic and carbonate material, manufactured by ETH Zurich/Ionplus AG. This is coupled to an elemental analyzer (EA).

    Currently, the staff of the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory consists of six people (a professor, two senior lecturers, two research engineers and a technician), who also perform other duties at the Department of Geology.

    Services provided

    14C dating, including pre-treatment of samples, graphitization, measurement, evaluation of results and report of uncalibrated and calibrated ages.

    -Can be supplemented with δ13C meassurements.

    For prizes, see website

    Management of the infrastructure

    Anne Birgitte Nielsen, [email protected], head of laboratory

    Subject classification (UKÄ)

    • Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
    • Archaeology
    • Subatomic Physics
    • Multidisciplinary Geosciences
    • Geology

    Type of infrastructure

    • Equipment

    Free keywords

    • Radiocarbon dating
    • Chronology
    • AMS
    • Quaternary
    • 14C
    • Radiocarbon

    Contact information

    NameMats Rundgren, Kristina Eriksson Stenström, Raimund Muscheler
    LinksWebsite

    Terms of loan/booking

    Available for loan - internal only

    Generally, access to the laboratory is for staff only, to minimize the risk of contamination of samples.
    For collaboration work, e.g. for research students, access can be agreed on by contact to the lab, see website.

    For prizes, see website

    (For already pre-treated samples, special arrangements can be made, contact lab).
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