TESTING THE USE OF MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY IN IDENTIFYING CLIMATE EVENTS IN ESTUARINE SEDIMENTS

One difficulty in precision dating of estuarine sediments along the Texas Coast is determining the radiocarbon reservoir within these systems. What is needed is the identification of a time-marker or event useful in correlating time between cores and helping place constraints on radiocarbon reservoirs. Recent work has demonstrated the prominence of the 8200 B.P. Holocene climatic event recorded in magnetic susceptibility (MS) measurements from cave sediments of central Texas. We measured the magnetic susceptibility at 5-cm intervals within a 20 m core extending back 9.6 ka from Corpus Christi Bay, TX in order to test for the presence of this 8200-year event. In addition, we test for the presence of other magnetic susceptibility anomalies within the 9.6 ka history of Corpus Christi Bay.