Paleoclimate proxies

o Paleoclimate proxies are physical, chemical and biological materials

preserved within the geologic record (in Paleoclimate archives) that can be
analysed and correlated with climate or environmental parameters in the
modern world.
o Scientists combine proxy-based Paleoclimate reconstructions with
instrumental records (such as thermometer and rain gauge readings) to
expand the understanding of climate variability to times before humans
began measuring these things.
o These reconstructions of past climate and environment span all timescales,
from year-to-year variations to those that occurred over millions of years.
These data help us understand how the Earth's climate system varied both
before and after human alteration of the landscape.
o The use of a proxy to reconstruct past climate requires an understanding of
how that proxy is related to some aspect of climate. For example, some
proxies, such as atmospheric gases trapped in glacial ice (e.g., carbon
dioxide and methane), provide a relatively direct measurement of
atmospheric chemistry at the time, the ice formed and was sealed off from
the atmosphere.
o Other proxies are less direct, such as stable isotope measurements (e.g.,
oxygen and carbon) from shells of marine organisms. These indirect proxies
require calibration studies in the modern system to establish the relationship
between climate processes and the proxy.
 Thermoluminescence (TL)

o TL dating is a technique that is based on the analysis of light release when

heating crystalline material. TL-dating is used in mineralogy and geology,
but is also increasingly being applied for dating of anthropological and
archaeological samples.
o TL dating is mainly applicable for material with mineral or crystalline
structure or with spurious crystalline contents. It is only usable of insulating
material not for metallic artifacts.
o In anthropology the main use of TL is the dating of flint stone as early tool
material for mankind. In archaeology TL is mainly used for pottery analysis.
o TL originates from the temperature induced release of energy, stored in the
lattice structure of the crystal following long-term internal and external
exposure to nuclear radiation from natural sources. TL accumulates in the
material with time depending on the radiation (and light) exposure. The TL
is released by heating. The dating clock starts with the initial firing of the
material, when originally accumulated TL is being driven out.
o Typical phenomenon of TL goes like this: when sample is heated above 200
degree Celsius, light emission in blue range is observed up to 400 degree
Celsius. At higher temperature, material emits a red glow. For second
heating no blue light emission is observed, only the red glow curve remains
at the higher temperature range.
o Age determination: the amount of accumulated TL is proportional to the
age of the sample and inverse proportional to the nuclear radiation
exposure of the sample.

o Amount of energy E deposited by radiation exposure into sample of mass m

within one year. It depends on the content of radioactive nuclei in the
sample material and on the exposure to external radioactivity.
o TL was the earlier of the luminescence techniques to be developed and was
originally applied to the dating of fired pottery or other forms of baked
sediment, notably brick and tile.
o Since then, however, it has been used to date a wide range of media,
including other fired materials, such as burnt flint artefacts, burnt stoncave
speleothem carbonate, and sediments such as loess, glacial lake-deposits
and sediments from the deep ocean floors and volcanic products, as well as
unburnt samples.
o The intensity of TL released by heating a piece of pottery or sample of
sediment is proportional to the quantity of natural radiation that has been
absorbed by particular minerals since the time of firing, or the last exposure
to sunlight.
o TL measurements are carried out on a sample of mineral material, usually a
separated quartz or feldspar fraction. This is heated to temperatures in
excess of 500 °C, and as light (photons) is emitted from the luminescence
centres, the photons are converted to electric pulses using a
photomultiplier tube, an instrument that is a very sensitive detector of
light.
o The light emission (TL intensity) is then plotted against the heating
temperature to produce a glow curve, in which the peaks are reflective of
the thermal lifetimes of the various electron trap populations in the sample.
Of particular interest to the dating specialist are the traps with long thermal
lifetimes (so-called ‘deep traps’) because electrons within them will remain
there over long periods of geological time.
o The ‘natural’ TL signal is compared with the ‘artificial’ signals obtained from
portions of the sample to which known doses of radiation have been
administered from a calibrated laboratory radioisotope source. This allows
an evaluation of the equivalent dose (DE), which is a measure of the
amount of radiation that would be needed to generate a TL signal equal to
that which the sample has acquired subsequent to the most recent firing
(zeroing) event or exposure to sunlight.
o The DE is sometimes referred to as the palaeo-dose, although this usage is
not strictly correct as it is a ‘palaeo-dose equivalent’ that is actually being
determined.
Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL)

OSL is a related phenomenon in which the luminescence is stimulated by absorption

of optical energy, rather than thermal energy.
Although TL continues to be used in luminescence dating, recent developments in
this field have been mainly associated with optical dating. Many of the principles of
TL dating underlie OSL dating, but the major difference is that during measurement
the trapped electrons are released by light rather than by heat.
The idea that visible light could be used to stimulate electrons, and that this
approach could be used to establish the time of deposition of sediments, was first
demonstrated 26 years ago (Huntley et al., 1985). In that study, a beam of green light
from an argon ion laser was employed, but light sources other than lasers have
subsequently been used, including filtered halogen lamps and high powered light-
emitting diodes (LEDs).
A further development has been the employment of infrared stimulated
luminescence (IRSL), although this approach can be applied only to feldspar grains, as
electron traps in quartz are insensitive to infrared (IR) stimulation (Hütt et al., 1988).
For feldspars, IRSL has a number of advantages over the use of green light, including
the fact that it tends to generate a stronger luminescence signal, electron traps
sampled by IRSL are more effectively bleached at deposition than luminescence from
traps stimulated by green light, while adequate stimulation power can be provided
by an array of LEDs, which are both cheap and convenient.
For quartz, expensive lasers and unreliable halogen lamps have now been largely
replaced by high powered blue-green LEDs
TL/OSL age =equivalent dose/dose rate
Palaeomagnetism dating
o Palaeomagnetism dating employs the record of changes in the earth’s magnetic
field contained in rocks and sediments to develop a chronology. Hence, it is the
study of how the Earth's magnetic field is recorded in ancient materials such as
rocks and sediments.
o Since magnetic minerals (e.g. magnetite, hematite) are almost ubiquitous in rocks
and sediments, palaeomagnetic studies can be applied to a wide range of
substances. These magnetic grains will attempt to align themselves with the local
magnetic field until they become locked into place. This is known as remanent
magnetization, and can be described by its inclination, declination, and intensity,
or by the related values of paleo-latitude and paleo-longitude which are used to
define a paleo-pole.
o The discovery that some minerals, at the time of their formation, can become
magnetized parallel to the Earth’s magnetic field was made in the nineteenth
century. Early in the 19th century, Bernard Brunhes made the startling discovery
that some rocks are magnetized in the opposite orientation to the Earth’s
present-day magnetic field. This led him to propose that the Earth’s magnetic
field had reversed its polarity in the past. These reversals have subsequently been
shown to be non-periodic and the Earth’s magnetic field reversal history is now
well known for the past 175 million years and more sketchingly understood to the
beginning of the Palaeozoic (ca. 545 Ma).
o In palaeomagnetism, rocks are dated based on the occurrence of reversals in
Earth's magnetic poles. These types of pole reversals have occurred with irregular
frequency every hundred thousand years or so in Earth's history. Geologists
collect samples to be analysed by drilling into bedrock, removing a core, and
noting the relative alignment to Earth's present magnetic field. The sample is
then analysed in the laboratory to determine its remnant magnetism—the pole's
alignment when the sample crystallized. Using a compiled master chronology of
pole reversals, scientists can then date the specimen. Because the time between
pole reversals is so large, this technique can only be used to date objects to an
accuracy of a few thousand to tens of thousands of years.
o The technique has been used to date human remains in the Siwalki Hills of India,
in the Olduvai Gorge in Kenya, and in the Hadar region of Ethiopia.
o Pleistocene problems suffers from the limitation that no easily recognizable
polarity changes have been found within the past 700 t.y.–the period of greatest
interest in glacial stratigraphy. For the earlier part of the Pleistocene,
palaeomagnetic dating has a great potential value which is still largely
unexploited. Palaeomagnetic evidences now being used to date events recorded
 in deep sea cores the boundaries of faunal and floral zones, climatic sequences,
and environmental changes revealed by lithology.

Dendrochronology

o Dendrochronology is the technique which employs annual growth increments in

the trunks of trees as a basis for a chronology. In most softwood (coniferous) trees,
new water- and food-conducting cells are added to the outer perimeter of the trunk
during the spring and summer months, following an inactive growth period during
the winter.
o The demand for water and food is greater during the spring growth season, and
hence these cells tend to be larger, whereas smaller cells with thicker walls
develop later in the summer and autumn. The result is a series of clearly defined
‘lines’ or tree rings, and counting of these enables the age of the tree to be
established.
o In hardwood (deciduous) trees, however, growth trends are more variable. Some
display a marked contrast between cells formed in spring and summer, with
markedly larger vessels forming earlier in the year. These are known as ring-
porous types and include ash, elm and oak. In other trees, however, such as alder,
beech, birch and lime, there is little difference in pore size between spring and
summer growth increments. These are termed diffuse-porous trees.
o The result is a considerable difference in the nature of tree rings between species,
and as some do not display clearly defined annual increments, not all trees are
suitable for tree-ring dating. The most widely employed in dendrochronology are
oak (Quercus) and certain coniferous species, mainly pine (Pinus), but also
Sequoia and Douglas fir.
Principles of Dendrochronology
o Dendrochronology can be applied to wood from a variety of contexts. The tree
may be standing or felled, it may form part of a building, or it may be buried on an
archaeological site or in a natural deposit such as peat.
o In some cases the wood may come from a secondary context, such as a pile of
timbers from a demolished building or from some drainage operation.
o Standing trees are sampled using an increment corer, a hollow metal tube which
extracts small-diameter cylinders of wood from the tree trunk. In the laboratory,
the wood samples are cleaned and mounted, and counting is carried out visually on
a moving stage under a microscope.
o Other approaches involve the use of electronic measuring equipment or X-ray
densitometry which determines annual variations in wood density.
o Because tree growth is closely dependent on climate, the width (or wood density)
of each annual ring will vary depending on whether climatic conditions in any one
 year have been favourable for, or inimical to, tree growth. This means that within a
given area, ring widths will vary in response to local or regional climatic changes.
o The result is a characteristic ring-width pattern within which distinctive rings
(representing a particularly good or bad growth year), or groups of rings, form
markers and these can be used as a basis for cross-matching or cross-dating
between wood of overlapping age range .
Applications of Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology has been applied in a wide range of contexts. The technique has
proved especially valuable in archaeology, allowing ages to be assigned to such
diverse objects as wooden buildings, prehistoric track ways buried beneath peats, and
ships’ timbers and other maritime artefacts.
Tree rings contain a range of potential measures of past climate and
dendroclimatology is providing new insights into Holocene climate change which are
not only important from the point of view of historical climate reconstruction, but the
data constitute important baselines for atmospheric scientists who are modelling past
and future climatic behaviour. Perhaps most important of all, however, has been the
calibration of the radiocarbon timescale by dendrochronology,
Dating a 2000-year temperature record
(Ex- for the northern hemisphere). Precisely dated dendroclimatological records are
now available for many parts of the world. The normalised composite curve provides
an indication of relative temperature changes (a mixture of predominantly summer
and some annual signal) at high latitudes, mostly between 60°N and 70°N, throughout
the last 2000 years.
This exclusively tree-ring-based ‘Northern Chronology Average’ shows a number of
clearly defined climatic phases and shifts, many of which have been identified in other
proxy climate records.
These include the pronounced fall in temperature during the sixth century AD and the
subsequent period of cooler climate during the Dark Ages, significantly warmer
conditions during the Medieval Warm Period from the tenth to the twelfth centuries,
the Little Ice Age cooling of the post-Medieval, and the marked temperature rise that
began in the nineteenth century and became even more pronounced during the course
of the twentieth century.
Dating historical precipitation records.
In addition to providing data on temperature change, tree-ring records can be used to
infer past changes in precipitation and, once again, these palaeo-precipitation
reconstructions can be precisely dated using dendrochronology.
By comparing measured ring-width variations with temperature and precipitation
records from nearby meteorological stations, a close statistical relationship was
established between tree growth (as reflected in ring-width changes) and precipitation.
It also proved possible to calibrate ring-width variation with precipitation levels so
that a quantitative estimate of past changes in precipitation could be determined.
These reconstructions indicate regionally coherent precipitation patterns that fluctuate
on decadal timescales and may be linked to changes in atmospheric circulation
patterns.

Dating methods used in Geoarchaeology:

o Radiometric dating
o Fission-track dating
o Luminescence dating
o Paleomagnetic dating
o Magnetostratigraphy
o Chemostratigraphy
o Correlation of marker horizons
o Geological hierarchy of chronological periodization

Radiometric dating
By measuring the amount of radioactive decay of a radioactive isotope with a known
half-life, geologists can establish the absolute age of the parent material. A number of
radioactive isotopes are used for this purpose, and depending on the rate of decay, are
used for dating different geological periods. More slowly decaying isotopes are useful
for longer periods of time, but less accurate in absolute years. With the exception of
the radiocarbon method, most of these techniques are actually based on measuring an
increase in the abundance of a radiogenic isotope, which is the decay-product of the
radioactive parent isotope.
Fission-track dating
Fission track dating is a radiometric dating technique based on analyses of the damage
trails, or tracks, left by fission fragments in certain uranium-bearing minerals and
glasses.
Fission-track dating is a relatively simple method of radiometric dating that has made
a significant impact on understanding the thermal history of continental crust, the
timing of volcanic events, and the source and age of different archeological artifacts.
The method involves using the number of fission events produced from the
spontaneous decay of uranium-238 in common accessory minerals to date the time of
rock cooling below closure temperature. Fission tracks are sensitive to heat, and
therefore the technique is useful at unraveling the thermal evolution of rocks and
minerals. Most current research using fission tracks is aimed at:
 understanding the evolution of mountain belts;
 determining the source or provenance of sediments;
 studying the thermal evolution of basins;
 determining the age of poorly dated strata;
 dating and provenance determination of archaeological artifacts.

Luminescence dating
Luminescence dating techniques observe 'light' emitted from materials such as quartz,
diamond, feldspar, and calcite. Many types of luminescence techniques are utilized in
geology, including optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), cathodoluminescence
(CL), and Thermoluminescence (TL). Thermoluminescence and optically stimulated
luminescence are used in archaeology to date 'fired' objects such as pottery or cooking
stones and can be used to observe sand migration.

Paleomagnetic dating
A sequence of Paleomagnetic poles (usually called virtual geomagnetic poles), which
are already well defined in age, constitutes an apparent polar wander path (APWP).
Such a path is constructed for a large continental block. APWPs for different
continents can be used as a reference for newly obtained poles for the rocks with
unknown age. For palaeomagnetic dating, it is suggested to use the APWP in order to
date a pole obtained from rocks or sediments of unknown age by linking the paleopole
to the nearest point on the APWP. Two methods of palaeomagnetic dating have been
suggested:
(1) the angular method and
(2) the rotation method.
The first method is used for Paleomagnetic dating of rocks inside of the same
continental block. The second method is used for the folded areas where tectonic
rotations are possible.

Magnetostratigraphy
Magnetostratigraphy determines age from the pattern of magnetic polarity zones in a
series of bedded sedimentary and/or volcanic rocks by comparison to the magnetic
polarity timescale. The polarity timescale has been previously determined by dating of
seafloor magnetic anomalies, radiometrically dating volcanic rocks within
magnetostratigraphic sections, and astronomically dating magnetostratigraphic
sections.

Chemostratigraphy
Global trends in isotope compositions, particularly carbon-13 and strontium isotopes,
can be used to correlate strata.

Geological hierarchy of chronological periodization

Geochronology: From largest to smallest:
 Supereon
 Eon
 Era
 Period
 Epoch
 Age
 Chron
Correlation of marker horizons
Marker horizons are stratigraphic units of the same age and of such distinctive
composition and appearance, that despite their presence in different geographic sites,
there is certainty about their age-equivalence. Fossil faunal and floral assemblages,
both marine and terrestrial, make for distinctive marker horizons.
Tephrochronology is a method for geochemical correlation of unknown volcanic ash
(tephra) to geochemically fingerprinted, dated tephra. Tephra is also often used as a
dating tool in archaeology, since the dates of some eruptions are well-established.

Dating useful for Pleistocene and Holocene period

o The C-14 method is commonly used to date Late Pleistocene and Holocene
rocks (< 40 ka).

o However, this dating is often done with carbon associated with the rock
formation or paleosol that lies below or above the studied unit, potentially
causing an incorrect interpretation of the age of the site (Siebe et al. 2004).

o The magnetic method has a significant advantage, since it allows dating the
moment of rock formation if the remanence carried by the sample is found to
be of primary origin.

o On the other hand, the K/Ar and 40Ar/39Ar methods are unable to date
Holocene volcanic eruptions and thus Palaeomagnetism becomes a powerful
alternative method to date lavas formed during the last 14,000 years.

o Palaeomagnetism and archaeomagnetism are an interdisciplinary branch of

geophysics that investigates the variations of the Earth’s magnetic field in
terms of:
 Declination intensity
 Inclination intensity
 Absolute intensity
o In practice, this is a dating method that consists in comparing the
paleodirections recorded in burned archaeological artifacts or recent volcanic
lava flows with a regional secular variation reference (master) curve.
‘Marin Isotope Stages’ and ‘Oxygen Isotope Stages’
MIS OIS

o They are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's Paleoclimate, deduced
from oxygen isotope data reflecting changes in temperature derived from data
from deep sea core samples.

o Working backwards from the present, which is MIS 1 in the scale, stages with
even numbers have high levels of oxygen-18 and represent cold glacial periods,
while the odd-numbered stages are lows in the oxygen-18 figures, representing
warm interglacial intervals.

o The data are derived from pollen and foraminifera (plankton) remains in drilled
marine sediment cores, sapropels, and other data that reflect historic climate;
these are called proxies.

o The MIS timescale was developed from the pioneering work of Cesare Emiliani
in the 1950s, and is now widely used in archaeology and other fields to express
dating in the Quaternary period (the last 2.6 million years),
…as well as providing the fullest and best data for that period for
paleoclimatology or the study of the early climate of the Earth representing "the
standard to which we correlate other Quaternary climate records".

How Measuring Marine Isotope Stages Work?

o Scientists take sediment cores from the bottom of the ocean all over the world
and then measure the ratio of Oxygen 16 to Oxygen 18 in the calcite shells of
the foraminifera.
o Oxygen 16 is preferentially evaporated from the oceans, some of which falls as
snow on continents.
o As a result, as snow and glacier ice accumulate, the oceans become richer in
Oxygen 18. Thus the O18/O16 ratio changes over time, mostly as a function of
the volume of glacial ice on the planet.
o Supporting evidence for the use of oxygen isotope ratios as proxies of climate
change is reflected in the matching record, of what scientists believe the reason
for the changing amount of glacier ice on our planet.