Isolation and compound specific radiocarbon dating of terrigenous branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs)

The relative abundances and distributions of branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) in marine and lacustrine sediments have been recently used as paleo-environmental proxies for the input of soil organic matter and past continental temperatures, respectively. The putative main source of brGDGTs is soil bacteria. Therefore, these biomarkers are also part of the soil organic matter stock that accumulates in the terrigenous environment. Here we present a method for isolating and purifying these compounds from lake sediments, soils and peat for radiocarbon (14C) measurement using a combination of normal and reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography, allowing complete separation of co-eluting compounds. Radiocarbon analysis was performed on an accelerator mass spectrometer system equipped with a gas ion source. We assessed the accuracy and the necessary corrections with modern and radiocarbon-dead procedural blanks. Blank assessment revealed that the reverse phase step introduced significant amounts of extraneous carbon, while the normal phase step did not. We show that with our method and instrumentation it is possible to obtain accurate and precise 14C analyses of brGDGTs with sample amounts as small as 10 μg C. Finally we demonstrate the application of the measurement of 14C concentrations of several brGDGTs isolated from lake sediments and peat soils.