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Wood Pretreatment Protocols and Measurement of Tree-Ring Standards at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

Richard A Staff*
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford 0X1 3QY, UK
Linda Reynard
Affiliation:
Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 11 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Fiona Brock
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford 0X1 3QY, UK
Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford 0X1 3QY, UK
*
2. Corresponding author. Email: richard.staff@rlaha.ox.ac.uk.

Abstract

This article presents the pretreatment protocols for wood samples processed at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), including recent implementation of a purification method to α-cellulose for non-routine samples. We examine the long-term reproducibility of measurement on wood samples at ORAU through the >1000 14C determinations made on known-age tree-ring standards processed in each AMS wheel since our present High Voltage Engineering Europa (HVEE) AMS system came on-line in September 2002. A discussion of background measurements is also provided.

Type
Methodology: Tree Rings and Plants
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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