Empirical calibration of the clumped isotope paleothermometer using calcites of various origins

Both the slope and intercept of our regression line deviate significantly from the first experimental calibration based on synthetic calcites digested at 25 °C (Ghosh et al., 2006a) and from several other studies having confirmed this pioneering calibration (i.e., Came et al., 2007; Tripati et al., 2010; Thiagarajan et al., 2011; Grauel et al., 2012; Saenger et al., 2012; Zaarur et al., 2013). However, our relationship between temperature and absolute Δ47 values is indistinguishable from that determined by Henkes et al. (2013) if the same difference in phosphoric acid fractionation factors between 25 and 90 °C is applied to both datasets. Our study and that of Henkes et al. (2013) have in common that data were primarily projected onto the absolute scale proposed by Dennis et al. (2011) - a reference frame that allows comparison of clumped isotope data measured in different laboratories. Furthermore, at any T, our regression line lies within 0.006‰ of the theoretical calcite calibration of Guo et al. (2009). The observation that both empirical calibrations are indistinguishable from each other implies that clumped isotope data can be directly compared between laboratories and referenced to a unique temperature calibration if (1) the phosphoric acid digestion temperature is set to 90 °C, and (2) raw data are primarily projected to the absolute scale.