EGU21-15449, updated on 04 Mar 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15449
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

High-resolution radiocarbon dating to reconstruct last century environmental changes in the pacific island of Espiritu Santo

Giorgia Camperio1,2, Caroline Welte1,3, S. Nemiah Ladd1,2,4, Matthew Prebble5,6, and Nathalie Dubois1,2
Giorgia Camperio et al.
  • 1Department of Earth Science, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
  • 2Department of Surface Waters, Research & Management, Eawag, Dübendorf, Switzerland
  • 3Department of Physics, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
  • 4Ecosystem Physiology, University of Freiburg, Germany
  • 5Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Asia Pacific Studies, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
  • 6College of Science, School of Earth and Environment, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

Espiritu Santo is one of the 82 islands of the archipelago of Vanuatu and is the largest, highest, and most biodiverse of the insular country. Climatic changes linked to El Niño and extreme events such as cyclones and volcanic eruptions are a daily challenge in this remote area. These events can be recorded in sedimentary archives. Here we present a multi-proxy investigation of sediment cores retrieved from two small lakes located on the West coast of Espiritu Santo. Although the records span the last millennium, high-resolution radiocarbon dating of macrofossils reveals a rapid accumulation of sediment in the past 100 years. The high accumulation rate coupled with the high-resolution dating of freshwater sediments allows us to compare the 14C bomb curve with the biogeochemical proxies of the sedimentary records. The results can then be validated against written and oral historical records linked with the societal perception of recent environmental changes in this vulnerable ecosystem.

How to cite: Camperio, G., Welte, C., Ladd, S. N., Prebble, M., and Dubois, N.: High-resolution radiocarbon dating to reconstruct last century environmental changes in the pacific island of Espiritu Santo, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-15449, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-15449, 2021.

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