We used radiocarbon dating of the organic soil surface remaining post-fire to examine whether the fire burned into ancient and likely irreplaceable soil C pools. Suprisingly, it did not; all radiocarbon dates from burned soil surfaces contained bomb carbon, setting the maximum age of the burned soil surfaces at ~50 years.
Data Set Results
Del 13C was determined on dissolved organic carbon from Imnavait Creek water collected from the fourth pond upstream of the Imnavait Creek flume in 1990 and 1991. Radiocarbon was determined on a sample in each year.
Two cores of peat, approximately 15 cm2, were cut to the depth at which mineral soils were encountered at each site. The sites of sampling correspond to an elevational gradient leading from the lakeside upslope to the begining of the water track at the ridgetop. Each sample was divided into three sections, one section to be used for radiocarbon age , one for loss on ignition, and the remainder to be kept for future needs.
Peat cores were collected along the Dalton Highway in 1989 and analysed for percent moisture, percent organic carbon, bulk densitey, del C-13, and radiocarbon content at varying depth intevals throughout the core. Samples were collected to the mineral zone and kept in cold storage until analysis. Samples were collected from 12 sites.
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was leached from p
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) was leached from permafrost soils near the Toolik Field Station in the Alaskan Arctic and then characterized for its photochemical properties. The radiocarbon (14C) and stable carbon (13C) isotopic compositions of carbon dioxide (CO2) photochemically produced from permafrost DOC were quantified.