Dating isotopic records from

At middle and southern European latitudes, farther from the immediate impact of glacier advances and retreats, well-dated isotope records from speleothems from widely spaced caves allow comparison of regional climate shifts. McDermott et al. (1999) found, for example that early Holocene warm conditions prevailed on the Atlantic seaboard (southern Ireland) while relatively cool conditions occurred in the Mediterranean region of southern France. At 3500 years these conditions were shown to reverse. In the eastern Mediterranean, oxygen and carbon isotope ratios have been used to determine wet and dry periods (Frumkin et al., 1994 Frumkin et al., 1999a, b Bar-Matthews et al., 1996). The wetter climate of the Holocene is recorded in the speleothems. 

Sampling and Precise Dating Requirements for Extracting Isotopic Records from Three Rings... 

To facilitate preliminary comparisons, we have aligned the dated intervals of our speleothem isotopic records, plotted as distance from the base of the deposit, to the chronology of established global paleoclimatic records (from ice and marine cores) and... 

Figure 6. WFP-2L values compared to the GIPS2 and Vostok ice-core records for similar time periods. 3 -order polynomial best-fit lines are shown for the WFP-2L and Vostok isotope records. A 3-point running mean (thick line) is shown for the GISP2 record. This reduces the GISP2 record to a resolution similar to the WFP-2L s resolution (WFP-2L has 51 points while the GISP2 record has 160 points). 5 0 values are not available for the Vostok record. The speleothem isotopes are plotted relative to distance from base. Bars on the dates represent vertical sampling range and they have been lined up with the compared chronologies. One possible peak-correlation scenario is shown (dotted lines). The GISP2 data are from Grootes et al. (1993), Meese et al. (1994) and Stuiver et al. (1995). The Vostok data is from Chappellaz and Jouzel (1992).

Although the coral-based paleoclimate records reconstructed to date are impressive, much work remains to be done. It is necessary to develop multiple tracer records from each coral record in order to establish a more comprehensive reconstruction of several concurrent climatic features. In addition, replication of long isotopic and elemental records from multiple sites is invaluable for establishing better signal precision and reproducibility. Coupled with fossil and deep-sea coral records, coral proxy records offer a comprehensive and effective means of reconstructing tropical paleo-climates. 

Age determinations of rocks from the Transantarctic Mountains were included in several compilations of isotopic dates of Antarctic rocks. These compilations include, but are not necessarily limited to Webb (1962), Picciotto and Coppez (1962,1964a, b), Angino and Turner (1963), Ravich and Krylov (1964), Webb and Warren (1965), Craddock (1969b), Stuiver and Braziunas (1985), and others. Stuiver and Braziunas (1985) listed not only radiogenic-isotope dates, but also carbon-14 dates that record enviromnental processes during the most recent past extending to about 30,0(X) years before the present (BP). 

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