Dry mass concentrations of individual n-alkanes in sediment core Haem13 from lake Hämelsee

This dataset provides concentrations of n-alkanes for the Lateglacial sediment sequence retrieved from Lake Hämelsee (Germany) in 2013. Concentrations of n-alkanes (ug/g), the Carbon Preference Index (CPI) and the Average Chain Length C21-C33 (ACL) are all presented against both depth (m) and age (cal yr. BP). The n-alkane concentration data provides information on the Lateglacial dynamics of local plant productivity, whereas the ACL and CPI of the sediment samples were determined to estimate origin and preservation condition. A total of 167 samples from the Lateglacial section of the core were processed using a Dionex 350 accelerated solvent extraction (ASE) system. Solid phase extraction (SPE) was used to separate the extracts into an aliphatic, aromatic and alcohol/fatty acid fraction. Separation was achieved by loading the extracts on activated silica columns and eluting each fraction with hexane, hexane/DCM (1:1 v/v) and DCM/MeOH (9:1 v/v) successively. The aliphatic fraction, containing the n-alkanes, was analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The peak areas for each n-alkane homologue were compared to the peak areas from an internal standard (5α-androstane) and an external n-alkane standard mixture for absolute quantification. We refer to Rach et al. (2020) for further details on the exact analytical setup. All measurements were performed in the laboratories of GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam.