Iraya Volcano, situated at the northern tip of Batan Island in the Batanes group, marks the northernmost extent of the Philippine archipelago. Aside from the presence of accessible tephra deposits, the numerous archaeological sites on the island provide key insight into tephrochronology and volcanic hazard assessment. This paper presents stratigraphy and 21 radiocarbon ages of Holocene tephra layers distributed on the island. The eruption ages of the Holocene tephra are approximately 12.4 cal ka BP for Rolling Hills at the bottom, 4.5–4.9 cal ka BP for San Antonio, 2.1–2.5 cal ka BP for Mahatao, 1.6 cal ka BP for Basco, and 1.2–1.6 cal ka BP for Boulder Beach, with most of the tephra concentrated in the latter half of the Holocene. Artifacts excavated from Reydante Cabizon Property Site, San Antonio, Basco can be thought to date to around 4 to 2 cal ka BP, which is consistent with tephrochronology.

A large-scale outcrop was exposed along the newly constructed road access to the Kumamoto Earthquake Museum “KIOKU” (former Tokai University Aso Campus). Multiple layers of tephra and paleosols cover the Sawatsuno lava (27 ± 6 K-Ar ka) in this outcrop. Three (3) characteristic tephra layers: Kusasenrigahama Pumice (Kpfa: ca. 32.5 cal ka BP) from Kusasenrigahama crater in Aso caldera, Aira Tn (AT: ca. 30 cal ka BP) and Kikai Akahoya (K-Ah: ca. 7.3 cal ka BP) from southern Kyushu are intercalated between thick sandy volcanic ash layers erupted from the post-caldera volcanoes of Aso caldera. Thirteen (13) radiocarbon ages were obtained from soil samples and charcoal fragments. Among these, a sample just below AT shows a younger age, indicating that the upper soil/tephra sequence including AT, was re-deposited on ground surface at the time immediately after ca. 13.4 cal ka BP indicated by this age. This suggests that the duplicated sequence, confirmed by our detailed dating is a product of either near-surface hidden faulting or a small local landslide associated with one of the paleoseismic events similar to the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake.

Long-lived trees support biodiversity at multiple scales, maintain ecosystem functionality, serve as natural archives, and hold cultural and aesthetic value. Despite their importance, the maximum longevity of many tree species remains poorly understood, limiting the design of effective conservation strategies. Challenges in obtaining reliable tree ages are commonly represented by natural wood decay, sampling obstacles, and indistinct or absent annual rings, which prevent or limit the application of tree-ring analyses (dendrochronology). Radiocarbon dating, increasingly accessible and applicable to all species, provides a flexible approach to study tree longevity and its ecological implications. For tropical trees, which mostly lack annual rings, radiocarbon dating is one of the few reliable methods to determine tree ages. Even in sections of the calibration curve characterized by oscillations and plateaus, statistical methods such as wiggle-matching or deposition models may be used to reduce the range of probable tree ages. In this paper, we illustrate a mismatch between tree-ring and radiocarbon-derived estimates of the longevity of angiosperm trees, with tree-ring maximum ages often half of those obtained through radiocarbon dating. We also present the most up-to-date estimates of maximum longevity for 42 arboreal angiosperm species worldwide, based on a literature review. Radiocarbon results indicate that ages of 400–500 years are a common feature of many broadleaved species, while exceptional old ages are restricted to a small minority of individual trees. Our results underscore the need for increased efforts to locate old and ancient trees, investigate their role in ecosystem ecology and ensure their protection.

In this paper a part of a new multi-proxy results obtained from the Kotoń landslide fen deposits (the Beskid Makowski Mountains, the Outer Western Carpathians, S Poland), including loss on ignition analysis, plant macrofossil analysis and radiocarbon dating is presented. The aim of the study was to verify whether the reconstructed local palaeoecological stages of the Kotoń fen development could be correlated with the Bølling-Older Dryas-Allerød sequence and to verify whether the rarely recognised short GI-1d/Older Dryas climate cooling affected the regional and local palaeoecological record of the Kotoń deposits. Results showed that four palaeoecological stages of development (poor-in-vegetation waterbody, waterbody with aquatic succession, calcareous extremely rich fen and moderately rich fen) determined for the Kotoń landslide fen deposits between ca. 14,600–13,500 cal BP stay in agreement with the earlier pollen division of the Kotoń deposits and with the extraregional chronology of the Greenland ice cores. The influence of GI-1d/Older Dryas climate cooling on the surrounding and regional vegetation was recognised for the deposits of Kotoń and other localities in a form of open-space habitats with herbs, shrubs and sparse tree stands, e.g. steppe-tundra, reflecting the cold and dry climatic conditions. In case of local vegetation and palaeohydrological changes, the Older Dyas climatic oscillation was recorded as a shallowing of the existing palaeo-waterbodies. Although for other localities this process was attributed to the dry climatic conditions, in case of Kotoń site more detail multi-proxy research is necessary to distinguish the climatic impact from the autogenic succession.

This study presents a comparative analysis of the radiocarbon dates obtained on paired samples of various organic materials extracted from a lake sediment core. AMS radiocarbon dating of bulk sediment, chironomid capsules, and Trapa seeds was conducted to assess whether systematic offsets exist in the dates obtained on material that are commonly used to develop chronological frameworks for lake-based paleoenvironmental research. The findings reveal significant discrepancies between 14C dates obtained on bulk sediment, chironomid capsules, and on the Trapa seeds used to develop a previously published age-depth model for a sediment core recovered from Deoria Tal, Garhwal Himalaya, India. The systematic offset between the bulk sediment, and to a lesser extent chironomid remains, and the Trapa seeds is attributed to the integration of allochthonous carbon in the bulk sediment, leading to older apparent ages. The 3.6‰ shift in the δ13C value of the bulk sediment at 252 cm is inferred to reflect an increase in the contribution of C4 plant matter to the lake. The increase in enriched δ13C organic matter, coincident with the increasing offset between the dates obtained on bulk sediment and chironomids, and those obtained on the Trapa seeds, between 800 and 400 cal BP, was likely driven by anthropogenic land use changes, as evidenced by the four-fold increase in Cerealia-type pollen during this interval. This study underscores the necessity of selecting appropriate materials for radiocarbon dating to ensure accurate chronological reconstruction and highlights the potential of using chironomids remains to develop robust radiocarbon chronologies for lake sediment records.

This study focuses on reconstructing paleoclimate changes between 830 BC and 650 BC, a period of critical significance marked by the Hallstatt Catastrophe, a shift from a warm and dry climate to a cool and humid one. This period also coincides with the onset of the plateau on the radiocarbon calibration curve. The research material consisted of oak tree trunks G24 and G58, discovered in Poland (Grabie village). Dendrochronological methods were employed to date the two trunks. The identification of the Miyake event around 660 BC in the Δ14C results from the Grabie tree rings corroborated the dendrochronological dating. This study presents an analysis of changes in stable carbon isotope composition in α-cellulose extracted from annual growth increments and variations in growth ring widths.

Some arboreal monocotyledons, such as the dragon trees (Dracaena sp.), can develop impressive trunks (>5 m perimeter) through a lateral meristem, but their ages are difficult to determine. We report here a series of calibrated radiocarbon (14C) dates obtained from a stem section of Dracaena draco (L.) L. subsp. draco growing on the island of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. This radial section, about 40 cm long, was cut on October 18, 2023, from a large (∼60 cm diameter) branch that had fallen off the main stem of a privately owned dragon tree. In order to apply 14C calibration, and given the lack of clearly defined growth layers, we collected 33 sequential samples at ∼1-cm intervals along this radial section. A first attempt at wiggle-matching resulted in a calibrated dating of ∼1787 CE for the innermost sample. Because we only knew the spatial distance, but not the time interval, between 14C dates, we further applied calibration tools commonly used for sedimentary sequences. The Poisson-process deposition model in the software OxCal resulted in a calibrated age for the innermost sample of 1776–1798 CE (2σ). The classic and Bayesian age-depth deposition models available as R packages dated the innermost sample to, respectively, 1775–1862 and 1768–1813 CE. Because the branch was at a height of ∼3 m from the ground, and its section did not reach the pith, our results suggest that this dragon tree was ∼300 years old in 2023.