Abstract 37(2), p. 155

¹⁴C Calibration in the Southern Hemisphere and the Date of the Last Taupo Eruption: Evidence from Tree-Ring Sequences

R. J. Sparks, W. H. Melhuish, J. W. A. McKee, John Ogden, J. G. Palmer and B. P. J. Molloy

Tree rings from a section of Prumnopitys taxifolia (matai) covering the period AD 1335-1745 have been radiocarbon dated and used to generate a ¹⁴C calibration curve for southern hemisphere wood. Comparison of this curve with calibration data for northern hemisphere wood does not show a systematic difference between ¹⁴C ages measured in the northern and southern hemispheres. A floating chronology covering 270 yr and terminating at the last Taupo (New Zealand) eruption, derived from a sequence of 10-yr samples of tree rings from Phyllocladus trichomanoides (celery pine, or tanekaha), is also consistent with the absence of a systematic north-south difference, and together with the matai data, fixes the date of the Taupo eruption at AD 232 ± 15.

[Radiocarbon Volume 37, Number 2, 1995]

14C Calibration in the Southern Hemisphere and the Date of the Last Taupo Eruption: Evidence from Tree-Ring Sequences

¹⁴C Calibration in the Southern Hemisphere and the Date of the Last Taupo Eruption: Evidence from Tree-Ring Sequences