Dating techniques carbon

The Dead Sea scrolls were found hy radioactive carbon-dating techniques to have 11.9 cpm per gram of carbon. Living material similar to that from which they were made has 15.3 cpm per gram of carbon. How old must the scrolls be, knowing that the half-life of carbon-14 is 5730 yr ... 

A piece of wood from the doorway of a Mayan temple is subjected to radioactive carbon dating techniques and found to have 12 7 cpm per gram of carbon The living trees from which the wood came had 15 3 cpm per gram of carbon Flow old must this temple be, knowing that the half-life of t4C is yr9... 

Paul, E. A., Campbell, C. A., Rennie, D. A., and McCallum, K. J. (1964). Investigations of the dynamics of soil humus using carbon dating techniques. Trans. 8th Inti. Congr. Soil Sci., Bucharest III, 201-208. 

PAUL E.A., CAMPBELL C.A., REENIE D.A. and McCALLUM K.J. 1964. Investigations of the dynamics of soil humus, utilizing carbon dating techniques. Transactions of the 8th International Congress of Soil Science, Bucharest, 201-208. 

Nuclear testing has increased the amount of carbon-14 in the air, and sensitive radiocarbon dating techniques take this increase into account. 

A more recently developed technique, known as the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating technique, based on counting, in a mass spectrometer, the relative amount of radiocarbon to stable carbon isotopes in a sample (see Textbox 10). 

Goy KM (1991) Carbon dating. In Coleman DC, Fry B (eds) Carbon isotope techniques. Academic, New York, pp 125-145... 

FIGURE 17.19 In the modern version of the carbon-14 dating technique, a mass spectrometer is used to determine the proportion of carbon-14 nuclei in the sample relative to the number of carbon-12 nuclei. 

Because radioactive isotopes seem to decay at very constant rates, they can be used as clocks. One of the first radioactive dating techniques involved the use of the radioisotope carbon-14. Carbon-14 is produced in the upper atmosphere when neutrons (produced by cosmic rays from space) collide with nitrogen-14 molecules in the reaction shown below ... 

B) Explain why carbon dating is not a very useful technique for determining the age of objects that were never alive. 

These remains were found eroding from the face of a coastal bluff in Del Mar, CA, in 1929. A variety of dates have been obtained for these remains, depending upon which materials were analyzed and which dating method was used. Bada and Masters reported on new dates based upon the new and more sensitive C-14 dating technique. The results, obtained on amino acids isolated from the bone, indicated that the skeleton was 5400 years old. These results were made possible by the more recent important advances in carbon dating that are described in Chapter 16. 

Early in 1979, Gove of the University of Rochester, one of the physicists involved in the development of the accelerator method, and Harbottle submitted to the Archbishop of Turin a joint proposal to carbon date the Shroud by both miniature techniques, by using small samples that had already been cut off the Shroud for a textile study in 1973. Although this proposal was not implemented, it did succeed in arousing the interest of the ecclesiastical... 

Ralph, E. K., "Carbon-14 Dating, in "Dating Techniques for the Archae-... 

Likewise, the continued development of compound-specific radiocarbon dating techniques ushers an exciting dimension to the study of PAHs and other hydrocarbons in modern sediments (e.g., Eglinton et al., 1997 Eglinton and Pearson, 2001 Pearson et al., 2001 Reddy et al., 2002). In particular, compound-specific radiocarbon determination offers a clear distinction to be made between new carbon (e.g., wood burning) and old carbon (petroleum and petroleum combustion). 

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