What is Radiocarbon Dating?

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.

The Remarkable Metrological History of Radiocarbon Dating [II]

Radiocarbon, or carbon 14, is an isotope of the element carbon that is unstable and weakly radioactive. The stable isotopes are carbon 12 and carbon Carbon 14 is continually being formed in the upper atmosphere by the effect of cosmic ray neutrons on nitrogen 14 atoms. It is rapidly oxidized in air to form carbon dioxide and enters the global carbon cycle. Plants and animals assimilate carbon 14 from carbon dioxide throughout their lifetimes. When they die, they stop exchanging carbon with the biosphere and their carbon 14 content then starts to decrease at a rate determined by the law of radioactive decay.

Radiocarbon dating is essentially a method designed to measure residual radioactivity.

The Remarkable Metrological History of Radiocarbon Dating [II]

By knowing how much carbon 14 is left in a sample, the age of the organism when it died can be known. It must be noted though that radiocarbon dating results indicate when the organism was alive but not when a material from that organism was used. There are three principal techniques used to measure carbon 14 content of any given sample— gas proportional counting, liquid scintillation counting, and accelerator mass spectrometry.

Gas proportional counting is a conventional radiometric dating technique that counts the beta particles emitted by a given sample.


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Beta particles are products of radiocarbon decay. In this method, the carbon sample is first converted to carbon dioxide gas before measurement in gas proportional counters takes place. Liquid scintillation counting is another radiocarbon dating technique that was popular in the s.

In this method, the sample is in liquid form and a scintillator is added. This scintillator produces a flash of light when it interacts with a beta particle.

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A vial with a sample is passed between two photomultipliers, and only when both devices register the flash of light that a count is made. Accelerator mass spectrometry AMS is a modern radiocarbon dating method that is considered to be the more efficient way to measure radiocarbon content of a sample. In this method, the carbon 14 content is directly measured relative to the carbon 12 and carbon 13 present.

The method does not count beta particles but the number of carbon atoms present in the sample and the proportion of the isotopes. Not all materials can be radiocarbon dated. Most, if not all, organic compounds can be dated.

Samples that have been radiocarbon dated since the inception of the method include charcoal , wood , twigs, seeds , bones , shells , leather, peat , lake mud, soil , hair, pottery , pollen , wall paintings, corals, blood residues, fabrics , paper or parchment, resins, and water , among others. Physical and chemical pretreatments are done on these materials to remove possible contaminants before they are analyzed for their radiocarbon content.

The radiocarbon age of a certain sample of unknown age can be determined by measuring its carbon 14 content and comparing the result to the carbon 14 activity in modern and background samples. The principal modern standard used by radiocarbon dating labs was the Oxalic Acid I obtained from the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Maryland. Anthropogenic 14 C variations: Photos showing visibility reduction in early morning top and mid-afternoon bottom are courtesy of R. Stevens [ 30 ].

Quantitative apportionment of natural and anthropogenic sources of particulate carbon, methane, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic ozone precursors in the atmosphere, meanwhile, has seen a significant expansion thanks to the sensitivity enhancement of accelerator mass spectrometry AMS [ 32 , 33 ]. The second revolution in 14 C measurement science was the discovery of a means to count 14 C atoms , as opposed to 14 C decays beta particles. The potential impact on sensitivity was early recognized: Allowing for the difference in relative detection efficiency between AMS and low-level counting, and setting t to 2 d, gives a sensitivity enhancement of roughly 10 4 , in favor of AMS.

This implies a dating capability of submilligram amounts of modern carbon. The prize of radiocarbon dating at the milligram level was so great that major efforts were made to refine mass spectrometric techniques to render the 1. Impediments from molecular ions and the extremely close isobar 14 N: Success came in , however, when high energy megavolt nuclear accelerators were used as atomic ion mass spectrometers [ 34 — 36 ]. Two measurement ideas held the key: The major isobar is eliminated because nitrogen does not form a stable negative ion.

Typical sample sizes are 0. A diagram of the accelerator at one of the leading facilities is given in Fig. The dramatic impact of high energy atomic ion mass spectrometry is shown in Fig. Excellent reviews of the history, principles, and applications of AMS are given in Ref. Conventional top vs accelerator high energy bottom mass spectrometry: As noted in the reviews by Gove and Beukens, the AMS revolution has extended well beyond 14 C, spawning a totally new research area in long-lived isotopic and ultra trace stable cosmo- and geo-chemistry and physics through its capability to measure 3 H, 14 C, 26 Al, 36 Cl, 41 Ca, and I, and most recently, selected actinides.

Within one year of the publications announcing successful 14 C AMS, another continuing series of international conferences was born. These conferences have continued on a triennial basis, with each proceedings occupying a special AMS conference issue of the journal, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research.

The radiocarbon dating of the Turin Shroud is arguably the best known dating application of accelerator mass spectrometry, at least to the lay public. It could not, or at least it would not have taken place without AMS, because most decay beta counting techniques would have consumed a significant fraction of this artifact.

This particular exercise is having a metrological impact well beyond the radiocarbon date, per se. This is shown, in part, by widely accepted statements 1 concerning scientific investigations of the Shroud, and 2 following publication of the Nature article announcing radiocarbon dating results Fig. The article, which was prepared by three of the most prestigious AMS laboratories, is available to the general public on the web www. Together with public television [ 39 ], it is helping to create a broad awareness and understanding of the nature and importance of the AMS measurement capability.

Secondly, because of controversy surrounding the meaning of the radiocarbon result, measurement aspects of artifact dating have been given intense scrutiny. Such scrutiny is quite positive, for it gives the possibility of added insight into unsuspected phenomena and sources of measurement uncertainty. The Turin Shroud is believed by many to be the burial cloth of Christ. The documented record, however, goes back only to the Middle Ages, to Lirey, France ca. The Shroud image, considered by some to be the skilled work of a mediaeval artist, shows a full length image of a crucified man; but as a negative image [ Fig.

The unique herringbone twill [ Fig. Shown in the montage are: Apart from sampling, 10 the AMS measurements were performed taking the strictest quality control measures. Three highly competent laboratories were selected: Samples of the Shroud, plus three control samples of known age, were distributed blind to the three laboratories.

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Control of this operation distribution of samples, collection of results was the responsibility of Michael Tite of the British Museum. The accuracy and precision of the interlaboratory data for the control samples were outstanding, leaving no doubt as to the quality of the AMS measurement technique Fig. Sample-1 Shroud results, however, were just marginally consistent among the three laboratories, prompting the authors of Ref. The transformation is shown in Fig. In addition, an interesting link exists between this figure and Fig.

A comparison of the two figures shows that the radiocarbon date BP , near the end of a significant calibration curve protrusion Fig. As indicated in the figure, the projected calendar age ranges are: Consistency of the AMS results with the existing Lirey documentation seems compelling, but a wave of questioning has followed—not of the AMS method, but of possible artifacts that could have affected the linen and invalidated the 14 C result Ref.

A sampling of the creative hypotheses put forward is given in Table 2. The first, for example, is based on the premise that nuclear reactions involving the substantial amount of deuterium contained in a human body could produce neutrons, which might then produce excess 14 C through the n,p reaction, making the age too young.

The proposed deuteron reactions, however, are either qualitatively or quantitatively inaccurate—barring an unnatural burst of high energy photons photofission.


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  • Apart from the effects of such factors on the Shroud, the issue of organic reactions and non-contemporaneous contamination of ancient materials can be a very serious and complex matter, deserving quantitative investigation of the possible impacts on measurement accuracy. Radiocarbon metrology is at the very moment in the midst of still another revolution, involving the dating or isotopic speciation of pure chemical fractions: In order to understand the nature of the challenge it is interesting to consider the limiting factors.

    Thus, the ultimate limiting factor for very small sample AMS is the overall isotopic-chemical blank. This is in sharp contrast with small sample, low-level counting where the Poisson modern carbon limit ca. Microgram level 14 C soot studies have already been successful in Greenland snow; and pollen studies hold great promise for ice core dating, and perhaps even for dating the pollen found by Max Frei on the Turin Shroud.

    To give a rough estimate: Ongoing multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research on soot particles in remote and paleo-atmospheres, which is absolutely dependent on the small sample dating capability, is indicated in Fig. The upper portion of the figure relates to climate oriented research on the sources and transport of fossil and biomass aerosol to the remote Arctic [ 49 ]; the lower portion relates to atmospheric and paleoatmospheric research at Alpine high altitude stations and ice cores [ 50 , 51 ].

    In the remainder of this section we present some of the highlights and measurement challenges of the first project, on the long-range transport of carbonaceous particles to Summit, Greenland. Submicromolar 14 C apportionment of anthropogenic and natural carbonaceous aerosols at remote sites in Europe and Greenland provides knowledge of their impacts on present and paleoclimate [ 49 — 51 ].

    It was catalyzed by the discovery of an unusually heavy loading of soot on one of the air filters used for 7 Be sampling at Summit, Greenland by Jack Dibb of UNH [ 52 ]. Measurement of 14 C in the filter sample yielded definitive evidence for biomass burning as the source of the soot. On one day only 5 August , the biomass carbon increased by nearly an order of magnitude, with scarcely any change in the fossil carbon concentration on the filter.

    Supporting data for the origin of the biomass burning carbon came from backtrajectory analysis, AVHRR infrared satellite imagery of the source region, and TOMS ultraviolet satellite imagery that was able to chart the course of the soot particles from the source wildfires to Summit. The several parts of this remarkable event are assembled in Figs. Massive 6 d, km transport of soot from boreal wildfires in Canada to Summit, Greenland.


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    • Left inset [ 1 ]: Consistent with the 14 C biomass carbon data, the cloud of smoke, indicated by the light turquoise circles, is present over central Greenland for 1 day only, 5 August This is illustrated in the upper right portion of Fig. An organic tracer of conifer combustion, methyl dehydroabietate, was found also at the same depth [ 53 ]. For the first time, direct sampling of air and surface snow took place over the polar winter, extending from June to April The large spring peaks, in particular, consisted primarily of biomass carbon: Beyond the fossil-biomass apportionment, however, lay questions about the nature and origin of the carbonaceous aerosol.

      Especially intriguing are contrasts between the samples showing summer [sample-4 WO4 ] and spring [sample-8 WO8 ] biomass-C maxima in Fig. Results for one of the microanalytical techniques employed, laser microprobe mass spectrometry LAMMS , are shown in Fig. First evidence of a seasonal pattern in biomass carbon aerosol in surface snow in central Greenland [ 55 , 56 ].

      PCA biplot of laser microprobe mass spectral data; compositional contrast between particles from the summer biomass peak WO4, red: The weight of multi-spectroscopic evidence thus indicates that the summer WO4 and spring WO8 biomass particles do not represent the same type of biomass. Rather, the WO4 particles appear to include a soot component from high temperature combustion motor vehicles, wildfires. The WO8 particles, whose carbon derives almost entirely from biomass, appear to have a major biopolymer component, such as cellulose and other bio-materials associated with soil and vegetative carbon.