Rare and Revealing: Radiocarbon in Service of Paleoceanography

While radiocarbon is best known as a dating tool, this rare isotope can also provide unique and wide-ranging insights into the cycling of carbon in the Earth system.

Radiocarbon is a rare, but powerful, isotope of carbon that is used widely as a dating tool and as an environmental tracer. A recent study in Reviews of Geophysics explores the use of radiocarbon in the field of paleoceanography. We asked the authors to give an overview of how radiocarbon is used, what recent advances have been made possible by radiocarbon, and what questions remain.

Read the rest of the EOS article based on the recent publication in Reviews of Geophysics