Scientists find way of stretching carbon dating back 54,000 years!

This could be an awsome scientific advancement if correct, as it will open up most if not all the ancient structures we see on the earth at the moment.

Welsh Scientists confirm carbon dating back to 54 thousand years

Research by Welsh scientists means carbon dating can now stretch back 54,000 years.

Mud built up over thousands of years on the floor of a Japanese lake has enabled the scientists to make significant improvements to the precision and accuracy of radiocarbon dating.

Radiocarbon dating has been phenomenally successful for archaeologists since it was invented in the 1950s.

It has been used to determine the age of Stonehenge and to test the age of the Turin Shroud.

Read More www.walesonline.co.uk... xzz29jHLGitN

The chap from the University that has come up with this is called Dr Henry Lamb:


And his biography can be found below:

www.aber.ac.uk...

It sound like a fantastic opportunity to look into the ancient structures that have caused many debates on this website, including the pyramids, which to me would be a fantatstic opportunity to look into the actual date of the structure.

C14 limits have been set around 50 to 60 something thousand years... for the last 30 years or so.

Please note that carbon dating does not date rock or stone. Structures made entirely from stone cannot be dated at this time.

P

Oh thats a shame, i was hoping this would be the breakthrough that was needed to date the stone structures, and why is it new news if its been around for 30 years.

reply to post by multichild


Next to the Pyramids are the remains of timber structures that can be carbon dated. The problem is that one has to make the assumption that these structures were used to build the Pyramids. It is just as valid to suggest that a ruler decided to give the Pyramids a face lift or a repair and thus we know when a repair was done rather than when it was built.

Just look at the refurbishment of any great landmark (the Statue of Liberty) to see where this thinking can go.

P

What the article is about is calibration of carbon dates to known levels of atmospheric radiocarbon content by studying leaves deposited in the sediment of a lake

These leaves were eventually preserved in the sediment and are ideal for working out past atmospheric radiocarbon content, the key indicator for radiocarbon dating.

This is important because:

“It is key to understanding how the global carbon cycle works. “The work we have done on the Siguetsu cores clearly shows that the new high-tech method developed here at Aberystwyth has contributed to significantly enhancing the precision and accuracy of the radiocarbon timescale.

So this is very significant previous calibration was done by tree rings but only went back 12,000 years (as usual the journalist muddled the meaning). Previous calibration had taken it back to 30,000 years using mass spectrometric U-Th ages from Barbados corals. This study takes calibration back to 54,000 years. Very important!

Excellent news

How come living snails are carbon dated to be 10,000 years old?
How come mammoths that are found, side by side, date thousands of years apart?
How come earth is getting older?
How come the moon is getting younger?

Carbon Dating is garbage.

Originally posted by CALGARIAN
How come living snails are carbon dated to be 10,000 years old?
How come mammoths that are found, side by side, date thousands of years apart?
How come earth is getting older?
How come the moon is getting younger?

Carbon Dating is garbage.

The creationist appear...

Any tool will give bad results when misused. Radiocarbon dating has some known limitations. Any measurement that exceeds these limitations will probably be invalid. In particular, radiocarbon dating works to find ages as old as 50,000* years but not much older. Using it to date older items will give bad results. Samples can be contaminated with younger or older carbon, again invalidating the results. Because of excess 12C released into the atmosphere from the Industrial Revolution and excess 14C produced by atmospheric nuclear testing during the 1950s, materials less than 150 years old cannot be dated with radiocarbon (Faure 1998, 294).

In their claims of errors, creationists do not consider misuse of the technique. It is not uncommon for them to misuse radiocarbon dating by attempting to date samples that are millions of years old (for example, Triassic "wood") or that have been treated with organic substances. In such cases, the errors belong to the creationists, not the carbon-14 dating method.

Link to Talkorigins


*the new study noted by the OP corrects that

^ Dude, it has nothing to do with that.

Carbon in the atmosphere has reached equilibrium many years ago. Things change.

Originally posted by pheonix358
reply to post by multichild

 

Next to the Pyramids are the remains of timber structures that can be carbon dated. The problem is that one has to make the assumption that these structures were used to build the Pyramids. It is just as valid to suggest that a ruler decided to give the Pyramids a face lift or a repair and thus we know when a repair was done rather than when it was built.

Just look at the refurbishment of any great landmark (the Statue of Liberty) to see where this thinking can go.

P

Sorry, but no.

Two seperate investigations have been made concerning dating Egyptian sites with C14. Mortar used in the pyramids was made using lime. Lime is made by burning limestone. The process in ancient Egypt resulted in charcoal being mixed with the lime, and the charcoal is still embedded in the mortar today.

Ancient Egypt has already been dated using C14, IOW, and the dates match fairly well with dates already determined through pottery styles and estimated dates based on other cultures.

Regarding the OP, what I make of it (and I didn't go to the link) is that a more accurate calibration of very old C14 dates has been found, using sedimentation in an ancient lake as a guide.

C14 in the atmosphere is created by cosmic rays, which are reasonably constant, as the largest source is the Sun. However, the occasional star does explode in this galaxy and this produces cosmic rays too, which impact the Earth and thus cause variation in C14. C14 readings, therefore, must be calibrated in some way or many readings will indicate that the artifact being dated is younger than it actually is.

Through various ingenious methods, science has established calibration curves that allow for pretty accurate C14 dating. This thread appears to be about a new calibration curve for very old artifacts, a thing which was needed.

I should note here that the monuments of Ancient Egypt do not fit into that "very old artifacts" category.

Harte

reply to post by CALGARIAN


That's why you calibrate- so the reading or more accurate

Since you don't seem to know much about C-14 dating

Here are the basics

C-14 dating

reply to post by Harte


Thanks Harte I was coming back to cover that and you covered it admirably