Dating the Ice Age Floods using Carbon-14 dating was used only two times. And the dating corresponded to the other methods used.We talking about the same thing - Radiocarbon Dating?
Radiocarbon dating measures the decay of carbon-14 in organic matter. But the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere fluctuates through time; it’s not a constant baseline. So researchers create radiocarbon calibration curves that map the carbon-14 values to dates.
Problems With Radiocarbon Dating
The old method of determining 14C/12C ratios required counting the number of radioactive beta decay emissions from a quite large sample over an extended period. During the last 60 years, a new method of determining these ratios has been developed. It uses accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to determine the amounts of 14C, 13C and 12C in a small sample which is vaporised in the test. The ions produced are forced into a magnetic field where the differing mass of the carbon isotopes causes a different deflection, allowing the quantity of each isotope to be measured. This method is rapid and more accurate than the older counting technique. The sensitivity of the mass spec method should allow the dating of objects up to 95,000 years old. As noted above, in practice this is not achieved.
A test by the British Science and Engineering Research Council has shown that the accuracy of the AMS method is overrated. They found large variations in the radiocarbon ‘dates’ of objects of known age, which were sent to 38 radiocarbon ‘dating’ laboratories around the world. Thirty-one of the labs gave results that the British group called unsatisfactory. Their results were ‘two to three times less accurate than implied by the range of error they stated.’ They thought the variations might have been caused by poor laboratory standards allowing contamination of the samples.
Some scientists believe the problem runs far deeper than this, as the following quote shows:
In the light of what is known about the radiocarbon method and the way it is used, it is truly astonishing that many authors will cite agreeable determinations as “proof” for their beliefs...
Radiocarbon dating has somehow avoided collapse onto its own battered foundation, and now lurches onward with feigned consistency. The implications of pervasive contamination and ancient variations in carbon-14 levels are steadfastly ignored by those who base their argument upon the dates.
...[Some authors have said] they were “not aware of a single significant disagreement” in any sample that had been dated at different labs. Such enthusiasts continue to claim, incredible though it may seem, that “no gross discrepancies are apparent”. Surely 15,000 years of difference on a single block of soil is indeed a gross discrepancy! And how could the excessive disagreement between the labs be called insignificant, when it has been the basis for the reappraisal of the standard error associated with each and every date in existence?
Why do geologists and archaeologists still spend their scarce money on costly radiocarbon determinations? They do so because occasional dates appear to be useful. While the method cannot be counted on to give good, unequivocal results, the numbers do impress people, and save them the trouble of thinking excessively. Expressed in what look like precise calendar years, figures seem somehow better—both to the layman and professional not versed in statistics—than complex stratigraphic or cultural correlations, and are more easily retained in one’s memory. “Absolute” dates determined by a laboratory carry a lot of weight, and are extremely useful in bolstering weak arguments...
No matter how “useful” it is though, the radiocarbon method is still not capable of yielding accurate and reliable results. There are gross discrepancies, the chronology is uneven and relative, and the accepted dates are actually selected dates. This whole blessed thing is nothing but 13th century alchemy, and it all depends upon which funny paper you read.
Robert E. Lee, Radiocarbon: Ages in Error. Anthropological Journal of Canada, vol. 19 (3), 1981, pp. 9-29
Though there have been improvements in the technology since then, Lee’s general criticism remains valid. There is a trend towards older objects having less 14C in them than younger objects, but clearly there are serious problems in converting the 14C/12C ratios of ‘old’ items into precise dates.
However, there are other factors which make the dating problems even worse. I believe that the 14C/12C ratios in the past were drastically altered by two powerful factors. These factors are changes in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field and changes in the total amount of normal carbon available to organisms. Changes which cause lower initial quantities of 14C and higher levels of 12C mean that radiocarbon date calculations which assume constant conditions in the past give falsely “old” dates.
Accelerator mass spectrometry has made radiocarbon dating the most precise method to determine the death of living organisms that occurred within the last 50,000 years. However, the method is not without limitations
How Fish Corrupt Carbon-14 Dating
Danish Stone Age settlements may turn out to be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years younger than we thought.
A physicist from Aarhus University has together with archaeologists at the Gottorp Castle Museum in Northern Germany made a startling discovery: if ancient people prepared their fish in clay vessels, it’s impossible to date this accurately.
It turns out that the widely-used Carbon-14 dating method may be up to 2,000 years off the mark.
”We had not expected to see an effect of 2,000 years. The discovery has some fairly frightening implications because it’s crucial to archaeology to have steady fixation points in the dating work. There’s probably no need to rewrite the history books, but it’s likely that they contain some incorrectly dated excavation sites, Associate Professor Felix Riede told Aarhus University’s newsletter Rømer.
Carbon dating, the archaeological workhorse, is getting a major reboot
A long-anticipated recalibration of radiocarbon dating could shift the age of some prehistoric samples hundreds of years
Lots of things apparently throw Carbon 14 readings off marks.
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