A modern analogue matching approach to characterize fire temperatures and plant species from charcoal

Charcoal identification and the quantification of its abundance in sedimentary archives is commonly used to reconstruct fire frequency amounts biomass burning. There are, however, limited metrics measure past temperature fuel type (i.e. types plants that comprise load), which are important for fully understanding impact regimes. Here, we expand modern reference dataset charcoal spectra derived from micro-Fourier Transformed Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) apply an analogue matching model estimate maximum pyrolysis plant material burned. We generated laboratory-created nine species were heated six categories (100 °C increments between 200 °C–700 °C). The approach on FTIR estimated temperatures with accuracy 57%, improved 93% when was considered ±100 °C. Model burned 38% at level, increased 67% grouped into trait-based categories. Our results show effective estimating burned, suggest it can also be applied found palaeoecological records, improving our regimes dynamics. • fragments reflect (temperature formed) Pyrolysis by database. analysis provide a way palaeo records.