Carbon dating assumptions

Does carbon dating prove the earth is millions of years old?

Whenever the worldview of evolution is questioned, the topic of carbon dating always comes up. Here is how carbon dating works and the assumptions it is based upon. Radiation from the sun strikes the atmosphere of the earth all day long. This energy converts about 21 pounds of nitrogen into radioactive carbon This radioactive carbon 14 slowly decays back into normal, stable nitrogen. Extensive laboratory testing has shown that about half of the C molecules will decay in 5, years. This is called the half-life.

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Unfortunately, a lot of misinformation about radiocarbon dating has been circulated by individuals who have neither training nor hands-on experience in this area. We feel a responsibility to make sure readers of this site go away with factual, truthful information, and this requires a frank correcting of some prevalent misinformation. This idea is advanced, for example, in The Young Earth : but the assumption of the original concentration is once again the technique's Achilles' heel. Morris, page The whole validity of radiocarbon dating for the past 10, yearsthe time span of interest to biblical chronologyhangs only on the tree-ring chronologies which are used to calibrate it.

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One of the basic assumptions in carbon dating is that the sample being analyzed has undergone only radioactive decay and has remained unaltered by any other process over the years since it ceased interaction with the biosphere. This assumption, however, is rarely true. The archaeological artifacts and geological specimens sent to labs for radiocarbon dating are usually found embedded or buried with other materials that may have affected their radiocarbon content. Any carbon-containing material that affects the carbon 14 content of any given sample is therefore a contaminant. Important Note on Pretreatment — It is important to understand the pretreatments which are going to be applied to samples since they directly affect the final result. You are welcome to contact us to discuss the pretreatment or request that we contact you after the pretreatment and prior to dating.

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Willard Libby and Radiocarbon Dating

Radiocarbon dating is a method that provides objective age estimates for carbon-based materials that originated from living organisms. The impact of the radiocarbon dating technique on modern man has made it one of the most significant discoveries of the 20th century. Archaeology and other human sciences use radiocarbon dating to prove or disprove theories. Over the years, carbon 14 dating has also found applications in geology, hydrology, geophysics, atmospheric science, oceanography, paleoclimatology and even biomedicine.

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