Sánchez-Moreno, Elisa M.Font, EricPavón Carrasco, Francisco JavierDimuccio, Luca A.Hillaire-Marcel, ClaudeGhaleb, BassamCunha, Lúcio2025-01-292025-01-292022-10-26Sánchez-Moreno, E.M., Font, E., Pavón-Carrasco, F.J. et al. Paleomagnetic techniques can date speleothems with high concentrations of detrital material. Sci Rep 12, 17936 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-21761-92045-232210.1038/s41598-022-21761-9https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/116840The U-series dating of young and 'dirty' speleothems is challenging due to difficulties in assessing the isotopic composition of detrital contaminants and the low-abundance of Th-230 generated in situ. Here we propose a new dating approach based on the comparison of a speleothem's paleomagnetic directions to reference curves from global paleomagnetic reconstructions. This approach is demonstrated on a stalagmite collected from the Soprador do Carvalho cave in the Central Region of Portugal. A radioisotopic age model, built using four U-series ages and three C-14, suggests relatively steady carbonate precipitation from similar to 5760 BCE until similar to 1920 CE. Forty-five 6 mm-thick subsamples were analyzed using alternating field and thermal demagnetization protocols, providing well-defined, primary magnetic directions. An age model of the stalagmite was obtained by fitting its paleomagnetic record with the reference paleosecular variation curves obtained by previous paleo-reconstruction models, applying statistical bootstrapping analysis to define their best fit. The resulting age models fit closely with the radioisotopic age model but provide a significantly higher time resolution. We reach the same conclusion when applying this approach to another stalagmite from the Algarve region of Portugal. Our approach thus appears a promising alternative to date young speleothems with high detrital contents.engAttribution 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/journal articlehttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-21761-9https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-21761-9open access550.3GeomagnetismPaleomagnetismSpeleothemsGeofísica25 Ciencias de la Tierra y del Espacio