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How Early Humans May Have Transformed L.A.’s Landscape Forever Science Friday, NPR, August 25, 2023 Uncovering Death by Fire 13,000 years ago Micheal Price, Sciences News, August 17, 2023 La Brea Tar Pits Reveal Clues to Mysterious Mass Extinction By Shana Hutchins, Futurity, August 18, 2023 The paywalled paper is: O’Keefe, F.R., Dunn, R.E., Weitzel, E.M., Waters, M.R., Martinez, L.N., Binder, W.J., Southon, J.R., Cohen, J.E., Meachen, J.A., DeSantis, L.R. and Kirby, M.E., 2023. Pre–Younger Dryas megafaunal extirpation at Rancho La Brea linked to fire-driven state shift. Science, 381(6659), p.eabo3594. Yours, Paul H.

Ancient kauri trees capture last collapse of Earth’s magnetic field By Paul Voosen, Science, February 18, 2021 Ancient Trees Show When The Earth's Magnetic Field Last Flipped Out By Nell Greenfield-Boyce, Short Wave, NPR, February 18, 2021 Buried treasure - subfossil swamp kauri By Kate Evans, New Zealand Geographic Voosen, P., 2021, Kauri trees mark magnetic flip 42,000 years ago Science. vol. 371, Issue 6531, pp. 766 DOI: 10.1126/science.371.6531.766 The paper is: Cooper, A., Turney, C.S.M., Palmer, J. and others, 2021, Global environmental crisis 42,000 years ago Science. Vol. 371, Issue 6531, pp. 811-818 Related paper Staff, R.A., Hardiman, M., Ramsey, C.B., Adolphi, F., Hare, V.J., Koutsodendris, A. and Pross, J., 2019. Reconciling the Greenland ice-core and radiocarbon timescales through the Laschamp geomagnetic excursion. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 520, pp.1-9. Yours, Paul H.

Researchers unlock secrets of the past with new international carbon dating standard University of Sheffield, August 12, 2020 PhysOrg Article about IntCal20 University of Arizona Press Release about IntCal20 "Radiocarbon dating is set to become more accurate than ever after an international team of scientists improved the technique for assessing the age of historical objects." PDFs of Various open access papers about IntCal 20 Yours, Paul H.

I thought this was an interesting concept... http://www.cardfund.org/ "The Community Archaeology Radiocarbon Dating (CARD) Fund was established and funded by Archaeological Research Services Ltd and the SUERC Radiocarbon dating laboratory in January 2016. The fund consists of a set number of radiocarbon dates available on an annual basis that community archaeology groups or projects can apply for. For 2016 there will be 10 radiocarbon dates available. The fund is not open to universities, students, professional archaeological organisations or large charities. It is directed specifically at community groups seeking to obtain radiocarbon dates on key samples from sites they have investigated." I could imagine something similar set up for avocational paleontology perhaps funded by individual membership fee or donations. Application criteria might encourage responsible/professional collection and documentation of a specimen suspected to have some scientific significance, but the local museum or university isn't interested or doesn't have the resources available. Establishing a qualified review committee transparent and agreeable to everyone might be more of a challenge. Darrow