REVIEW ON IN-SITU COSMOGENIC 14C DATING AND POTENTIAL APPLICATION IN PALEOEARTHQUAKE |
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| Authors: | YIN Jin-hui YANG Xue ZHENG Yong-gang |
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| Institution: | State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing 100029, China |
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| Abstract: | Over the last two decades, in-situ cosmogenic 14C dating has become an import tool in Quaternary geology and is recognized to geoscientists because of its potential to provide information on exposure age and process rate estimates for geomorphic studies. The in-situ cosmogenic radiocarbon has a relatively short half-life(5730 yr)and is substantially more sensitive than all the other cosmogenic nuclides used so far. It is therefore particularly useful to determine surface-exposure ages of Holocene landforms and quantify erosion rates in rapidly denuding landscapes during the past few tens of thousands of years. Moreover, in situ 14C is produced in quartz which is both highly resistant to weathering and common in nature, so it can be used in combination with other in-situ cosmogenic nuclides such as 3He, 10Be,21Ne,26Al, and 36Cl to constrain complex exposure histories involving burial and/or erosion occurring over the past 25ka.
The age and slip rate of Holocene normal fault have been undoubtedly a challenge for seismologists to be faced with as result from lack of appropriate late Quaternary sediment. Recently, the cosmogenic nuclides such as 36Cl of preserved, seismically exhumed normal fault scarps were used to identify the last few major earthquakes and recover their ages and displacements through the modeling of the content of 36Cl in the scarp rocks.
This paper mainly summarizes the development of in-situ 14C dating, including its research history, production rate estimate, production mechanism, chemical behavior and experimental method. The potential application of in-situ 14C dating to recovering past earthquakes, their timing, and the regularity of their recurrence for preserved, seismically exhumed normal fault scarps is also introduced. |
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| Keywords: | exposure age cosmogenic nuclides in-situ 14C dating normal fault |
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