“I like my relationships exactly how I like the planet – circumneutral and sustainable” – Paleolimnology
After belatedly celebrating two years of the show, we’re back with a fresh episode arc. The unifying theme this time is introductions to the relevant literature of specific paleolimnological topics. The kind of thing that would be attached to a “Welcome to the project!” e-mail. Our Core Reading Lists begin with something where background knowledge is essential for virtually all paleolimnologists – 210Pb dating.
These lists are not intended to be comprehensive, but instead five (or so) journal articles that can act as a primer for deeper literature dives. We will try to choose approachable papers (ideally open access ones), rather than foundational works (i.e. we wouldn’t choose On the Origin of Species as the starting point for a reading list on evolution), and we will also try to limit the number of review articles included.
After some debate of where to begin, we reflected on how it was stressed in the History of Paleolimnology arc, that the development of reliable dating methods was fundamental to the development of paleolimnology as a quantitative science, and all paleolimnologists will have to consider a dating model at some point in their studies. Therefore, our first reading list is for 210Pb dating.
The List:
- Appleby PG, Oldfield F (1983) “The assessment of 210Pb data from sites with varying sediment accumulation rates” Hydrobiologia 103: 29-35
- Schelske CL, Peplow A, Brenner M, Spencer CN (1994) “Low-background gamma counting: applications for 210Pb dating of sediments” Journal of Paleolimnology 10: 115-128
- Binford MW (1990) “Calculation and uncertainty analysis of 210Pb dates for PIRLA project lake sediment cores” Journal of Paleolimnology 3: 253-267
- Blais JM, Kalff J, Cornett RJ, Evans RD (1995) “Evaluation of 210Pb dating in lake sediments using stable Pb, Ambrosia pollen, and 137Cs” Journal of Paleolimnology 13: 169-178
- Baud A, et al. (2022) “A framework for 210Pb model selection and its application to 37 cores from Eastern Canada to identify the dynamics and drivers of lake sedimentation rates” Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 47: 2518-2530
Honourable Mentions:
- Appleby PG, Oldfield F (1978) “The calculation of lead-210 dates assuming a constant rate of supply of unsupported 210Pb to the sediment” Catena 5: 1-8
- Appleby PG (2001) “9. Chronostratigraphic techniques in recent sediments” In: Smol JP, Last WM (eds.) Tracking Environmental Change Using Lake Sediments. Volume 1: Basin Analysis, Coring, and Chronological Techniques. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 171-203
- Blaauw M, Christen JA (2011) “Flexible paleoclimate age-depth models using an auto-regressive gamma process” Bayesian Analysis 6: 457-474
We welcome comments on our choices for an introductory reading list, but consider it to be a good mix of foundational, historically important and evaluative papers. We believe it can serve as a good introduction and launching point for anyone new to the topic of 210Pb dating in paleolimnology.