Dating: The Radiocarbon Way

[Kara Sundstrom]

Dating: The Radiocarbon Way   
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http://www.archaeologychannel.org/

Location: Worldwide   Length: 10 min     56k    300k    700k      56k    300k    700k
What is carbon 14? What is a radiocarbon date? Is it the same as a calendar date? What does radiocarbon dating measure and why does it take a long time? How does an accelerator mass spectrometer measure carbon isotopes? What can you date with radiocarbon? This film features Dr. Christine Prior of GNS Science’s Rafter Radiocarbon Laboratory in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, explaining how AMS radiocarbon dating is done at their lab. Dr. Prior explains the principles of radiometric dating and presents an example from a real client.

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[archaeologist]

What is carbon 14?

it is something you take in your body throughout your life. it is merely another isotope but an unstable one.

What is a radiocarbon date?

a radiocaron date is the age of an item measured by the remaining c-14 isotopes left in its body (only organic material can be measured this way) unfortunately, this system is based upon an assumption

Is it the same as a calendar date?

no. though years are used to present the final date it really has nothing in common with the calendar system

What does radiocarbon dating measure and why does it take a long time?

it measures c-14 in an organic object. not sure what you mean by your second question there.

How does an accelerator mass spectrometer measure carbon isotopes

it merely counts the number of isotopes present as it goes through a process hope the link helps

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070810000413AAaGE9L

What can you date with radiocarbon?

animals, plants and people.

now a word of caution. c-14 dating is built upon an assumption. this assumption assumes that we already know how much carbon 14 the deceased started with but in reality we can never know. i do not agree with the claims that we can go back 50-100,000 years with c-14 dating as the half life does not really support that contention. many scientists use calibrators to push back the dates but those calibrators have their own set of problems as well. items t be dated need t be contaminate free and that is not always easy to find.

anothe rproblem is how constant is that decay rate? if a human is torn apart by animals or machinery does each individual piece decay at the same rate? hard to say and it is very unlikely that they do and if bits an dpieces are lost or eaten, then the total amount of beginning c-14 is diminished, skewing the results in the modern age.

[BlueHue2]

Well I am no expert, but,
I thought that the radio carbon dating
becomes unreal at 1500 bc

Beyond that Scientists switched to
LITIUM-carbon dating.

In Dendrology this Dating Flaw is funest
Any Radio carbon Date from trees beyond
1500 bc must read a falsh notion !