Lochs Etive, Fyne and Sween; Sound of Kerrera; Lyme Bay

Stable isotopes in biota

Isotope ratio mass spectrometers

This dataset comprises both raw and reprocessed clumped oxygen and carbon stable isotope values of the shell layers of the brachiopods Novocrania anomala and Terebratulina retusa, the bivalve molluscs Crassostrea gigas and Mytilus edulis, and thallus of the coralline algae Lithothamnion glaciale. Data also include calibration and other parameters associated with data acquisition. Shells and thalli samples were collected from five localities around the UK, (Loch Etive, the Sound of Kerrera, Loch Fyne, Lyme Bay, and Loch Sween). All shells and thalli were sampled manually and kept cold during transportation, before preparation at the University of Stirling. Samples were cleaned and air-dried. Micro-sampling of individual bimineral layers was performed manually with carbide drill bits and/or engraving tools. Powdered samples were treated with hydrogen peroxide to remove organics and air-dried for isotope analyses. Clumped isotope measurements were performed at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) during 2018. Samples were digested with 103% phosphoric acid and the resulting carbon dioxide purified and analysed with a Thermo Scientific 253 Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometer (IRMS) configured to measure clumped isotopes. Temperatures were calculated from raw delta47 by re-projecting these in the carbon dioxide equilibrium scale (delta47CDES) using the carbonate standards ETH-1, ETH-2, ETH3 and ETH-4 (Bernasconi et al., 2018) and applying the empirical calibration of Bonifacie et al., (2017). The formula to calculate temperatures from delta47 measurements is included in the data file. This work was carried out by Maggie Cusack and Javier Medina-Sánchez – University of Stirling; Matthieu Clog – Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre; Huabing Yin and Nicholas Kamenos – University of Glasgow. It was funded by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Discovery Science project entitled “When isotopes don’t clump” (grant reference NE/P011063/1) active from 1st May 2017 – 1st July 2020.

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