Radiocarbon Dating DIC and DOC in Water

Dr. Scott and Mr. Ahearn will give a brief overview on Dissolved Inorganic Carbon (DIC) versus Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC). They will also talk about Beta Analytic R&D department’s case studies, including the use of brown Nalgene (HDPE) versus amber glass bottles when collecting water samples for radiocarbon dating.

Other topics include:

• Beta Analytic’s requirements on DOC concentration, salinity and filtration;

• Ultraviolet-Visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopic tracking of aromatic carbon; and

• UV oxidation and conversion of ¹⁴CDOC to ¹⁴CO2 for radiocarbon analysis.

About the Speakers

Dr. Amy M. Scott is currently the Director of R&D and manages the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and methane/hydrocarbon projects at Beta Analytic. Dr. Scott was a 2011 Camille and Henry Dreyfus Environmental Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University in New York City, and a postdoctoral researcher at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago. She earned her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at Northwestern University in 2009. She has published 34 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts.

Mr. Ahearn is a geologist and Research & Development Scientist at Beta Analytic. His water projects have been focused on understanding changes in water chemistry, ranging from nitrate pollution to carbon cycling (DIC/DOC).

He has both a B.Sc and M.Sc from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine Atmospheric and Earth Sciences division of Geosciences, where he focused on using geochemical techniques to evaluate sediment and water sources in restricted environments.

Dr. Scott and Mr. Ahearn are co-authors of the research “Using environmental tracers to evaluate the preservation of palaeoclimate signals in aquifers of the London Basin, UK” published in the Journal of Hydrology in February 2023.

You might also be interested in these free webinars available on demand:

• Strontium and Boron Isotopes in Hydrochemistry
• Isotopes 101: Dissolved Carbon
• Isotopes in Hydrology