Re: Radiometric Dating Techniques

Steven Schimmrich (schimmrich@earthlink.net)
Tue, 10 Feb 1998 15:24:38 -0500

At 10:48 AM 2/10/98 -0700, Burgy wrote:
>
>Chuck wrote:
>
>>"If you find an old piece of wood, and it only contains half as much C-14
>>as it did when the tree was alive, the tree was chopped down 5730 years
>>ago.. ."
>
>Chuck -- what answer is made when someone, having been told the above,
>objects that nobody knows how much C-14 the tree had 5730 years ago, that
>C-14 levels may have been different then?

The C-14 dates are calibrated by tree ring dating (dendochronology). There's
a lot of information at http://www.ltrr.arizona.edu/people/Henri/index.htm.

- Steve.

--   Steven H. Schimmrich              Assistant Professor of Geology
   Physical Sciences Department      schimmri@kutztown.edu (office)   Kutztown University               schimmrich@earthlink.net (home)   217 Grim Science Building         610-683-4437, 610-683-1352 (fax)   Kutztown, Pennsylvania 19530      http://home.earthlink.net/~schimmrich/