Research Finds Carbon Dating Flawed 625
eldavojohn writes "New research funded by the National Science Foundation at the University of Miami is showing that carbon dating (the 13C/12C ratio used to infer age) in the ocean can only be trusted up to 150 million years ago. From the primary researcher, 'This study is a major step in terms of rethinking how geologists interpret variations in the 13C/12C ratio throughout Earth's history. If the approach does not work over the past 10 million years, then why would it work during older time periods? As a consequence of our findings, changes in 13C/12C records need to be reevaluated, conclusions regarding changes in the reservoirs of carbon will have to be reassessed, and some of the widely-held ideas regarding the elevation of CO2 during specific periods of the Earth's geological history will have to be adjusted.' While this research doesn't necessarily throw carbon dating out the window, it should cause people to rethink so many theories about early life that revolved around ages of sediment in the oceans."
Re:This has been known for some time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not news (Score:5, Informative)
The title "Carbon Dating Flawed" was a poor choice as there are at least 2 different carbon dating methods, and the most common and well-known, radiocarbon-14 dating, isn't affected by the finding.
Re:Title (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure you understand what the word "theory" means in science. I'll give you a hand. From (eeek) Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
"Theories" are built upon "Facts". "Intelligent Design" does not even reach the level of a "Theory" because it is not based upon facts, but mere conjecture.
Not at all the news you're thinking of (Score:5, Informative)
The radiocarbon dating you're talking about, and most of the posters are thinking of, is with the radioactive isotope Carbon-14 against the stable Carbon-12. This is what's used to date more recent carbon-based life.
This is not what this article is talking about. The method in question is using two stable isotopes and apparently wrongly assuming a correlation between the 13/12 ratio in the plants and the atmosphere.
Re:Damn... (Score:2, Informative)
I hate science journalism (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Title (Score:1, Informative)
What are you talking about? Young Earth Creationists aren't arguing that dinosaurs didn't exist. They are arguing that they existed at the same time as humans and were eventually killed off by the Flood!
Best cure for fundamentalists: scripture. (Score:5, Informative)
You need to learn the bible for insight into much of western thought, but you should also learn it for the fun that can be had with it's biblically ignorant followers.
First, ask them what the ten commandments are. This will trip 95% of them up and they'll walk away without bothering you. If they say that the commandments are not important, tell them you think the same about the rest of the Bible.
Claim you don't believe in Yahweh because you don't believe in infanticide. They'll give you a strange look, and then ask them to read Psalm 137:9, which is in context, Jews daydreaming about smashing their enemies' infants to pieces.
Ask them if they eat lobster, or if there's a girl in the group, if they wear pants. If they say yes, ask them why they support the homosexual agenda, since all three are abominations according to the bible.
They will go to great lengths to explain away why what they do or don't is covered by some painful translation-based loopholes, and what everyone else does is what's really wrong. This is the basic definition of a hypocrite, which concerns my favorite scripture:
'As he taught, Jesus said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows' houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.'
Don't get me wrong, the world would be a great place of everyone followed the advice of Jesus, but most of them have never read more than ten pages of their Holy Book.
it's not carbon dating (Score:5, Informative)
Carbon dating is based on the decay rate of Carbon 14, and has a pretty short limit geologically speaking - 70,000 years with enrichment methods, but closer to 50,000 years using traditional counting. It's possible accelerator 14C dating has pushed this slightly - I haven't worked in this field for about a decade.
The tie-in to "dating" in this context is that sediments are deposited over time, and if they're undisturbed you can drill a core that'll give you (theoretically) a record of the 13C/12C ratio over time - but that ratio is not being used for dating AT ALL. The only way you could use the ratio for ersatz dating is if the sediment shows an annual 13C/12C cycle due to annual temperature variations - then you can count the cycles the same way you can count tree rings (BTW 13C/12C in tree rings varies in this same sort of summer/winter - or spring/fall - pattern). In any case, the actual dating of the sediments is usually done using a different, longer-lived, radiometric isotope ration such as you find with rubidium-strontium (That particular isotope pair may not be the best fit for sea sediments; like I said, I've been out of this for a while. We mainly did 13C/12C in trees and 18O/16O in ice cores).
Re:Damn... (Score:4, Informative)
You forgot Darwin:
Before the attraction of gravity was discovered . . . astronomers might have said God ordered each planet to move in its particular destiny. In the same manner God orders each animal created with certain forms in certain countries. But how much more simple and sublime to let attraction act according to certain law. -Darwin, 1837 notebook.
Re:Title (Score:5, Informative)
In spite of such evidence, evolution believing geologists build models based on today's observed rates of change and expect these to produce reliable results reaching back millions or billions of years.
Allow me to interrupt you there...
The geological observations that lead to the model of a multi-billion year old earth were made by creationist geologists. Many before the theory of evolution had been proposed.
This is one of the minor errors in your contribution. The accuracy and 'linearity' of radiometric dating has been demonstrated (both theoretically and experimentally) and confirmed beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt - your beliefs notwithstanding. Please learn something about the history of geology, evolution and the philosophy of science before commenting on them again.
Full paper (Score:4, Informative)
Swart, P.K. Global Synchronous Changes in the Carbon Isotopic Composition of Carbonate Sediments Unrelated to Changes in the Global Carbon Cycle, Proc Nat. Acad. Sci. 37, 13741-13745. [miami.edu]
Note that the paper is only about carbon dating of shelf sediments, *not* fossils.
The article is not about "carbon dating!" (Score:4, Informative)
The OP never bothered to read the article, or has some strange ideas about carbon dating. The article title is just wrong. The 13C/12C ratio doesn't offer a date of any kind. What it has been used for, as the article says, is to infer when life begins to be an important player in the planetary environment. The article explains that a researcher has identified flaws in how the ratio is estimated. Nothing what-so-ever to do with "carbon dating." Instead it has to do with estimated dates of the ratio changes. The dates are probably Uranium based dates (you can't date anything more than about 50,000 years old using radiocarbon). The C13/C12 ratio estimated from proxies FOR that date are apparently in error.
Re:Title (Score:3, Informative)
...For example, the process of radioactivity is used to date living and non living objects. Carbon dating is only one of these dating methods based on radioactivity. Science has known about radioactivity for only about 100 years. Over that short time span we observed radioactive decays to be occurring at a quite regular, apparently highly predictable rate. We assume (believe) therefore that this is a linear process, even over immense amounts of time, millions and even billions of years.
We can actually observe many radioactive decay processes long in the past, by looking at events far away. Supernova SN 1987A, for example, allowed a very good observation of uranium decay 168000 years ago.
We can also C14-date objects over a wide range of known history, and synchronize the dates with e.g. dendrochronology and simple recorded history. This is not enough to deal with geological time ranges, but it is plenty long enough to rule out any kind of Bishop Uther young earth chronology.
Re:Title (Score:4, Informative)
What effect does the Industrial Revolution and the subsequent history's use of fossil fuels have on carbon dating?
Interesting question.
It would have no effect on anything already old and dead. It wouldn't really have any effect on normal uses of carbon dating. What the Industrial Revolution and burning fossil fuels has done is taken large amounts of "old" C14-depleted carbon out of the ground and dumped it into the atmosphere as CO2. Radiation hitting the upper atmosphere slowly turns some of that carbon into "fresh" radioactive C14. However I believe it takes several thousands of years for that conversion to C14 to really rise to its full level. So this means that for a few thousand years the carbon in the air is going to be somewhat C14 depleted - it reads as "old" in carbon dating. Plants will consume that "old" carbon CO2 from the air and photosynthesize it into the sugars and starches and proteins and everything else that makes up the plant. This should have the effect of dead modern plants testing as probably a few hundred years older than they actually are. It will have the same effect on animals - the plants eat "old" carbon from the air and then the animals eat the "old" carbon from the plants. The animals build their bodies out of that "old" carbon in their food.
So the effect will likely be maybe a few hundred year shift in the apparent readings for materials from this general era, but carbon dating readings will be calibrated against the expected results to take that effect into account. Future archaeologists may have trouble telling the difference between 1700's materials and 2000's materials. They may read about the same.
My estimates may be off on the size of the effect, but that is how carbon dating works and that is approximately the sort of impact it should have.
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Re:Now get this, creationists (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA finds slashdot article seriously flawed (Score:5, Informative)
This is not about Carbon dating at all (that's about looking at the decay of Carbon 14, produced by cosmic ray radiation high in the atmosphere), this is about the Carbon 12/13 isotope ratio used as an indicator of biological activity in the distant past. Basically, what they say they found was that this is only trustworthy in deep ocean sediments, not on land or in island sediments, and you can only find deep ocean sediments for the last 150 million years or so, due to plate tectonics recycling the sea floor.
This will not affect geological dating at all. It may affect the interpretation of some work regarding, e.g., extinction events. It's hard to say without looking in detail at the other work (they may have several lines of evidence, etc.).
Re:This has been known for some time (Score:1, Informative)
You mean theoretical neutron decay?
Re:Title (Score:5, Informative)
It's one thing to read some Dawkins
I've never read any Dawkins, but from the few clips I've seen of him on TV he seems like a bit of an ass.
People who claim to believe in evolution on the internet have quite clearly never read any science
Hmmm. Willful trolling, or incredibly misinformed?
Every national or international science organization with an an official position on evolution state that evolution in overwhelmingly confirmed by all evidence. Just a sampling of such scientific bodies that have made such statements on the subject:
Academy Of Science Of The Royal Society Of Canada
Alabama Academy Of Science
American Anthropological Association
American Association For The Advancement Of Science
American Association Of Physical Anthropologists
American Astronomical Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute Of Biological Sciences
American Astronomical Society
American Society Of Biological Chemists
American Chemical Society
American Geological Institute
American Psychological Association
American Physical Society
American Society Of Parasitologists
Association for Women Geoscientists
Australian Academy of Science
Botanical Society of America
California Academy Of Sciences
Ecological Society of America
Genetics Society of America
Geological Society Of America
Geological Society of Australia
Georgia Academy Of Science
History of Science Society
Iowa Academy Of Science
Kentucky Academy Of Science
Kentucky Paleontological Society
Louisiana Academy Of Sciences
National Academy Of Sciences
North American Benthological Society
North Carolina Academy Of Science
New York Academy Of Sciences
Ohio Academy Of Science
Ohio Academy Of Science
Ohio Math and Science Coalition
Oklahoma Academy Of Sciences
The Paleontological Society
Society For Amateur Scientists
Society For Integrative and Comparative Biology
Society Of Systematic Biologists
Society Of Vertebrate Paleontology
Southern Anthropological Society
Virginia Academy Of Science
West Virginia Academy Of Science
You can read the statements from each of them collected here. [ncseweb.org]
Actually the "National Academy of Science" for almost every major nation on earth has made such a statement, but I don't have a handy link for all of them.
There are minor activist groups dedicated to both sides of the issue, but as far as National or International organizations dedicated to science or particular fields of science, non-biased organizations that incidentally issues position statements on the issue as an incidental action aside from their actual mission of preforming and promoting other science, every single one has come down on the side of confirming the scientific legitimacy of evolution and categorizing the anti-evolution side as invalid or pseudo science.
In fact I personally have dabbled in some evolution experiments and I have personally witnessed the fact that it's right and works.
On your side you have the crackpot answersingenesis website, and you have the Discovery Institute activists and a couple of other minor activist groups, and not one single legitimate scientific body, not one recognized International or National body dedicated to general science.
If you think the science is against evolution, you have been wildly misinformed. Except for a tiny fraction of a single percent, actual professional degreed scientists across all of the earth and life sciences come down on the side of evolution being valid and established by the evidence.
You can cite Michael Behe and a small handful of other actual degreed professional biologists who dispute evolution, but as I said they represent a minuscule faction of a percent. And not a single major body dedicated to general science acknowledges any credible scientific results from any of their attempts to refu
Re:This has been known for some time (Score:3, Informative)
No, GP means "proton decay". Neutrons *do* decay, it's been observed. They don't do it in nuclei, though. Protons are *hypothesized* to decay, but no one has ever seen it. (And the timescale estimates keep getting revised upwards in response to the non-detections. Makes ya wonder, doesn't it?)
Parent Is a Troll (Score:1, Informative)
Seach the Firehose for "decay rate" and you'll find my submission, which was rejected (not complaining actually, just a bit confused).
You mean this article?
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/29/1227239 [slashdot.org]
Re:Nuclear Decay Rates are Not Random, People (Score:2, Informative)
Isn't this even more pertinent to the concept of anthropogenic warming than the absolute dating article Slashdot went with???
Maybe it is. After all, it was posted on Slashdot [slashdot.org] a few weeks before this article.
Re:Title (Score:1, Informative)
Stable 13C/12C ratios have nothing to do with radiocarbon dating! Whoever posted this needs to do some basic research and realize that 14C is used for radiocarbon dating, not 13C/12C ratios which is what the paper concerns itself with. For those of you idiots who didn't pay attention to your most basic high school chemistry, 13C and 12C are NOT the same as 14C. Hence, this in no way negates radiocarbon dating. Perhaps some of you should have paid attention in your basic biology, chemistry, or anthropology courses in high school!
As a creationist, this I don't get. (Score:3, Informative)
Is it me, or is there an awful lot of extrapolation going on here? Also, how do people get the half-life of stabilized nickel to be some odd Billion years? I read once in an article that they used the geologic record of the earth to determine it, but I figured that can't be right, because you use that to determine the age of a mineral sample, and that makes it circular reasoning.
Headline is misleading, at best (Score:3, Informative)
Re:ID believers go nuts (not) (Score:3, Informative)
You're assuming that lots of IDers hang out on Slashdot. Not so. Many of them hang out on local newspaper forums, or on websites catering to their kind, or on political-argument sites, or for the retirees with too much time on their hands, they write letters-to-the-editor.
Totally confused summary ... (Score:1, Informative)
"is showing that carbon dating (the 13C/12C ratio used to infer age)"
13C/12C is a STABLE carbon isotope ratio, which wavers around over geological time. It gives some indication of changes in biomass, erosion, and other processes affecting the carbon cycle. Simplistically, it is about changes in biological versus non-biological carbon-storing processes occurring on land and the oceans.
Sometimes that variability through time is a signature that can be used to correlate rock successions of the same age (e.g., if it does a particular rate and magnitude of wiggle, that might correspond to the wiggles in 13C/12C found at another site), but this method distinctly DOES NOT yield a numerical age, and it is therefore not a radiometric dating technique. It is useful for correlation -- i.e. matching ages from site to site -- which is valuable, but a different sort of age information (the order of geological events, not their numerical age). This article calls that correlation ability into question, but there are many other techniques used.
The threshold at about 150 million years has to do with the fact that there isn't any ocean crust older than that which hasn't been subducted into the mantle or pushed up onto the continents in rather deformed pieces -- i.e. it gets harder to get an unaltered and continuous sample of carbonate rock in order to measure its 13C/12C ratio.
C-14 dating relies on a radioactive isotope (i.e. C-14) and it only works back to about 100000 years or so. It goes that far only if you use specialized techniques. Most C-14 dates are in the range age of those carbon cycle fluctuations? No. There's no mention of that in the cited article because the numerical ages of the variations come from entirely unrelated techniques.
What could changes in our understanding of 13C/12C ratios through geological time possibly have to do with U/Pb or K/Ar isotopic ratios, for example?
Anybody who thinks this calls the age of the Earth or "carbon dating" into question is seeing the word "carbon" and "isotope" in the same sentence and thinking that equates with C-14 dating, which isn't even relevant to the age of the Earth in the first place. In other words, they're confused.
Re:Global Warming is not a scientific theory. (Score:3, Informative)
For example, did you know that they've only been measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide levels since 1959? Less than 50 years. And did you know that they measure the carbon dioxide levels on an active volcano? ... Obviously people aren't going to believe that they are measuring CO2 from an active volcano, because it's just too stupid to be true.
If the OP was not trying to at least insinuate that the CO2 readings used to support Climate Change are being taken from that active volcano, then s/he has no point, whatsoever. Is it "too stupid to be true" to measure the CO2 output of a volcano? No. Is it "too stupid to be true" that scientists would use only those measurements and discover Climate Change? Yes, that would be too stupid to be true, and that was obviously the OP's intent.