Arikay

Hello,

I was curious, what would happen if you dated a plant or animal with Carbon 14 that was older than possible dating age?

Would it say an infinite age?

Would not be able to read any carbon 14 and come back with no c14?

what are the different methods used in C14 dating? and how would they react to dating something too old?

I think I understand it, but I just wanted to check up with more knowledgable people.

-Ari

Derec

What happens with C14 is that the older the sample gets the less C14 is in the sample. Eventually the amount of C14 gets below the noise threshold and no reliable carbon dating can be done.

UMoC

MrDarwin

You don't "date a plant or animal with Carbon 14", at least not directly. You measure the ratio of carbon isotopes and I imagine there are tables showing which ratios convert to which ages under which circumstances, with ratios becoming more unreliable at greater ages, and below a certain cutoff point simply considered so unreliable as to be incalculable.

Nic Tamzek

I think I've seen ages reported as ">50,000" as that is about the limit.

Joe Meert

JM: No, it would be >whatever the particular detectable limit of the instrument. For example >45,000 years. That information may, or may not be of any practical use.

Cheers

Joe Meert

Dr.GH

As the others have pointed out. Radiocarbon dating is limited to samples less than around 10 half-lives of C14. That is, about 50,000 years old, Depending on the preservation of the sample, nad the amount of money you have to spend, you could maybe get valid data from a 60,000 years old specimen.

If a specimen is poorly preserved, badly excavated, or very old, there can be results that are beyond the method's range.

Some well paid professional creationists like to submit bad samples for dates. When the data are returned, these creatos holler about how "radiometric dating" doesn't work. In fact, there is always some amount of detected C14, or the radiation associated with C14. This is due to unavoidable contamination. We know that dates returned by this paarticular method are not very good, and we then look for different samples and methods.
Therefore, the maximum date from a carbon sample is around 50,000 years old.

Look at these:

http://asa.calvin.edu/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

http://www.geocities.com/Tim_J_Thomp...diometric.html

Arikay

Thanks for the responses.

I basically Understand it, I was just reading one of those general creationist "it should have given an Infinite age" and "anything with too little c14 should give a reading of Not enough c14" stuff, and wanted to make sure I knew why those comments were stupid.

Albion

I assume they know exactly what they're doing. Good thing Christians don't lie, isn't it?