The Carbonate 14C Background and its Components at the Leibniz AMS Facility

Abstract

After routine accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating had been established at the Leibniz-Labor with the completion of systems for CO2 production, graphitization, and target making, a systematic investigation was conducted to find the sources of 14C concentrations observed in background materials. We quantified the contributions of the AMS-system, the reduction, CO2 production from carbonate, carbonate contamination, and combustion. Carbonate contamination appears to be the dominating factor. Improvements in the pretreatment of foraminifer carbonate have led to the elimination of most of this contamination.