This award is in support of one element of the project: Paleoclimates from Arctic Lakes and Estuaries (PALE). The study of pollen in sedimentary deposits has been one of the primary sources of information on continental paleoenvironments and will undoubtedly be one of the predominant proxy climate indicators in the reconstruction of Arctic paleoenvironmental conditions. This project will refine and further test techniques for the extraction of pollen from sedimentary deposits for dating by radiocarbon accelerator mass spectrometry. These extraction techniques have recently been shown to be effective in isolating pollen from contaminants that are probably responsible for significant inconsistencies and uncertainties in sediment dates obtained by the traditional method of 14C radioactive decay dating of bulk sediment samples. The development of improved pollen extraction and radiocarbon dating techniques will greatly facilitate the preparation and dating of samples of interest to the general palynology and paleoecology research communities.
