Sample Submission
Important: Do NOT send any samples until you have contacted KCCAMS staff and received confirmation that your samples can be processed. Please note that we can only accept samples in batches of at least 10 samples per sample type.
To send samples to the KCCAMS facility at UC Irvine for analysis, please follow the steps below.
(1) Contact us first. Submitters, especially first-time applicants, must contact the laboratory to discuss their requirements before sending any samples. Use the contact list below to identify the appropriate person for your application area:
| Land & Atmosphere | Oceans | Archaeology, Paleoclimatology, Paleoceanography, Paleogenomics & others |
| Claudia Czimczik (czimczik@uci.edu) Xiaomei Xu (xxu@uci.edu) Guaciara Santos (gdossant@uci.edu) Jennifer Walker (jen.walker@uci.edu) | Brett Walker (brettw1@uci.edu) Ellen Druffel (edruffel@uci.edu) Sheila Griffin (sgriffin@uci.edu) | John Southon (jsouthon@uci.edu)Hector Martinez De La Torre (hamartin@uci.edu) Guaciara dos Santos (gdossant@uci.edu) |
| KCCAMS facility Earth System Science 2222/2313 Croul Hall University of California Irvine, CA 92697-3100 Phone: +1 949 824 3444 | KCCAMS facility Earth System Science 2212 Croul Hall University of California Irvine, CA 92697-3100 Phone: +1 949 824 3286 | KCCAMS facility Earth System Science B321 Croul Hall University of California Irvine, CA 92697-3100 Phone: +1 949 824 3674 |
(2) Submit the paperwork. Complete a sample submission form with sample list for each batch of samples and send them to us by e-mail. A hard copy of each must also accompany the physical samples when they are shipped. Provide the following additional information:
- A brief description of the project (a few sentences), including overall objectives, the rationale for ¹⁴C measurements, and any relevant prior dating work.
- A brief description of sampling methodology and any pre-treatment already applied (e.g., foraminifera picked from marine sediments, sonication in alcohol).
- A sample list containing, for each sample: your lab number; a descriptive ID if available (e.g., stratigraphic information, species, or sample material, such as “core 58PC, 325 cm, G. bulloides“); sample type (CO₂, macrofossil, graphite, HPLC fraction, etc.); measured or estimated carbon content; and approximate expected age (e.g., bomb ¹⁴C, modern, Holocene, ca. 40 ka).
- An assessment of any potential interpretation problems, where applicable.
(3) Select your own materials. Our facility routinely processes charcoal, wood, seeds, carbonates, animal remains, and similar materials. Defining and selecting the specific material to be analyzed, however, is the submitter’s responsibility: you know your samples far better than we do, so isolating the macrofossils or charcoal from within a sediment or peat matrix is your job. We do not offer specialized services such as pollen or foraminifera picking, or individual compound separation. We also discourage dating of bulk soil, peat, or sediment, because these materials typically contain mixtures of components with widely differing ages.
(4) Check sample size. The preferred minimum sample size for a ¹⁴C measurement is 1 mg of carbon. The sample sizes listed in the table below will yield approximately this amount when material is well preserved; poorly preserved samples will require more. If your samples are smaller than recommended, contact our staff to discuss feasibility before shipping.
