# What does radiocarbon dating do

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Figure 2: a calibration curve showing radiocarbon content over time. This new method was based on gas and liquid scintillation counting and these methods are still used today, having been demonstrated as more accurate than Libby's original method 3. The sample-context relationship is not always straightforward.\
&#x20;![what does radiocarbon dating do](https://opentextbc.ca/chemistry/wp-content/uploads/sites/150/2016/05/CNX_Chem_21_03_CarbonDate.jpg)\\

A very small percentage of carbon, however, consists of the isotope carbon 14, or radiocarbon, which is civil. It is assumed that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today 1 to 1 trillion. The ability to date minute samples using AMS has meant that palaeobotanists and palaeoclimatologists can use radiocarbon dating on pollen samples. The Idea Group Findings In 1997 an eight-year research project was started to investigate the age of the earth. The chosen coal samples, which dated millions to hundreds of millions of years old based on standard evolution time estimates, all contained measurable amounts of 14C. Where gas is glad, CO 2 is widely used.

As a result, archaeologists believed that the Western megalith-building cultures had to be younger than the Near Eastern civilizations. Accelerator mass spectrometry is much more sensitive, and samples containing as little as 0. When a biological organism dies, the radioactive carbon in its body begins to break down or decay. Because 14 C decays at a known rate, the proportion of radiocarbon can be used to determine how long it has been since a given sample stopped exchanging carbon — the older the sample, the less 14 C will be left.\
&#x20;![what does radiocarbon dating do](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/saraptllsassignment3bmaterialsused2-13104873372761-phpapp02-110712113416-phpapp02/95/carbon-footprint-7-728.jpg?cb=1310470543)\\

**How Does Carbon Dating Work** - Radiocarbon Dating Pioneer American physical chemist Willard Libby led a team of scientists in the post World War II era to develop a method that measures radiocarbon activity. The question was resolved by the : comparison of overlapping series of tree rings allowed the construction of a continuous sequence of tree-ring data that spanned 8,000 years.\
&#x20;![what does radiocarbon dating do](https://pics.onsizzle.com/what-is-a-mandela-what-does-mandela-effect-mean-the-9399450.png)\\

Scientists use a technique called to estimate the ages of rocks, fossils, and the earth. Many people have been led to believe that radiometric dating methods have proved the earth to be billions of years old. With our focus on one particular form of radiometric dating—carbon dating—we will see that carbon dating strongly supports a young earth. Note that, contrary to a popular misconception, carbon dating is not used to date rocks at millions of years old. Basics Before we get into the details of how radiometric dating methods are used, we need to review some preliminary concepts from chemistry. Recall that atoms are the basic building blocks of matter. Atoms are made up of much smaller particles called protons, neutrons, and electrons. Protons and neutrons make up the center nucleus of the atom, and electrons form shells around the nucleus. The number of protons in the nucleus of an atom determines the element. For example, all carbon atoms have 6 protons, all atoms of nitrogen have 7 protons, and all oxygen atoms have 8 protons. The number of neutrons in the nucleus can vary in any given type of atom. So, a carbon atom might have six neutrons, or seven, or possibly eight—but it would always have six protons. The illustration below shows the three isotopes of carbon. There are two main applications for radiometric dating. One is for potentially dating once-living things using carbon-14 dating, and the other is for dating rocks and the age of the earth using uranium, potassium and other radioactive atoms. The atomic number corresponds to the number of protons in an atom. Atomic mass is a combination of the number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus. The electrons are so much lighter that they do not contribute significantly to the mass of an atom. Carbon-14 Dating Carbon-14 14C , also referred to as radiocarbon, is claimed to be a reliable dating method for determining the age of fossils up to 50,000 to 60,000 years. If this claim is true, the biblical account of a young earth about 6,000 years is in question, since 14C dates of tens of thousands of years are common. God knows just what He meant to say, and His understanding of science is infallible, whereas ours is fallible. So we should never think it necessary to modify His Word. All radiometric dating methods use scientific procedures in the present to interpret what has happened in the past. The procedures used are not necessarily in question. The interpretation of past events is in question. The secular evolutionary worldview interprets the universe and world to be billions of years old. The Bible teaches a young universe and earth. Which worldview does science support? Can carbon-14 dating help solve the mystery of which worldview is more accurate? The use of carbon-14 dating is often misunderstood. Carbon-14 is mostly used to date once-living things organic material. It cannot be used directly to date rocks; however, it can potentially be used to put time constraints on some inorganic material such as diamonds diamonds could contain carbon-14. Because of the rapid rate of decay of 14C, it can only give dates in the thousands-of-year range and not millions. There are three different naturally occurring varieties isotopes of carbon: 12C, 13C, and 14C. Carbon-14 is used for dating because it is unstable radioactive , whereas 12C and 13C are stable. Radioactive means that 14C will decay emit radiation over time and become a different element. If 14C is constantly decaying, will the earth eventually run out of 14C? The answer is no. Carbon-14 is constantly being added to the atmosphere. These cosmic rays collide with atoms in the atmosphere and can cause them to come apart. Neutrons that come from these fragmented atoms collide with 14N atoms the atmosphere is made mostly of nitrogen and oxygen and convert them into 14C atoms the neutron is accepted and a proton is ejected from the nucleus. Once 14C is produced, it combines with oxygen in the atmosphere 12C behaves like 14C and also combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide CO 2. Because CO 2 gets incorporated into plants which means the food we eat contains 14C and 12C , all living things should have the same ratio of 14C and 12C in them as in the air we breathe. How the Carbon-14 Dating Process Works Once a living thing dies, the dating process begins. As long as an organism is alive it will continue to take in 14C; however, when it dies, it will stop. Since 14C is radioactive decays into 14N , the amount of 14C in a dead organism gets less and less over time. Therefore, part of the dating process involves measuring the amount of 14C that remains after some has been lost decayed. In order to actually do the dating, other things need to be known. The decay rate of radioactive elements is described in terms of half-life. The half-life of an atom is the amount of time it takes for half of the atoms in a sample to decay. The half-life of 14C is 5,730 years. For example, a jar starting with all 14C atoms at time zero will contain half 14C atoms and half 14N atoms at the end of 5,730 years one half-life. At the end of 11,460 years two half-lives the jar will contain one-quarter 14C atoms and three-quarter 14N atoms. Since the half-life of 14C is known how fast it decays , the only part left to determine is the starting amount of 14C in a fossil. If scientists know the original amount of 14C in a creature when it died, they can measure the current amount and then calculate how many half-lives have passed. Since no one was there to measure the amount of 14C when a creature died, scientists need to find a method to determine how much 14C has decayed. To do this, scientists use the main isotope of carbon, called carbon-12 12C. Because 12C is a stable isotope of carbon, it will remain constant; however, the amount of 14C will decrease after a creature dies. All living things take in carbon 14C and 12C from eating and breathing. Therefore, the ratio of 14C to 12C in living creatures will be the same as in the atmosphere. This ratio turns out to be about one 14C atom for every 1 trillion 12C atoms. Scientists can use this ratio to help determine the starting amount of 14C. When an organism dies, this ratio 1 to 1 trillion will begin to change. The amount of 12C will remain constant, but the amount of 14C will become less and less. The smaller the ratio, the longer the organism has been dead. The following illustration demonstrates how the age is estimated using this ratio. Percent 14C Remaining Percent 12C Remaining Ratio Number of Half-Lives Years Dead Age of Fossil 100 100 1 to 1T 0 0 50 100 1 to 2T 1 5,730 25 100 1 to 4T 2 11,460 12. It is assumed that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today 1 to 1 trillion. If this assumption is true, then the AMS 14C dating method is valid up to about 80,000 years. Beyond this number, the instruments scientists use would not be able to detect enough remaining 14C to be useful in age estimates. This is a critical assumption in the dating process. If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates. What could cause this ratio to change? If the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere is not equal to the removal rate mostly through decay , this ratio will change. If this is not true, the ratio of 14C to 12C is not a constant, which would make knowing the starting amount of 14C in a specimen difficult or impossible to accurately determine. Willard Libby, the founder of the carbon-14 dating method, assumed this ratio to be constant. His reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. Assumptions in the scientific community are extremely important. If the starting assumption is false, all the calculations based on that assumption might be correct but still give a wrong conclusion. This was a troubling idea for Dr. Libby since he believed the world was billions of years old and enough time had passed to achieve equilibrium. If the cosmic radiation has remained at its present intensity for 20,000 or 30,000 years, and if the carbon reservoir has not changed appreciably in this time, then there exists at the present time a complete balance between the rate of disintegration of radiocarbon atoms and the rate of assimilation of new radiocarbon atoms for all material in the life-cycle. Libby chose to ignore this discrepancy nonequilibrium state , and he attributed it to experimental error. However, the discrepancy has turned out to be very real. The Specific Production Rate SPR of C-14 is known to be 18. The Specific Decay Rate SDR is known to be only 16. What does this mean? If it takes about 30,000 years to reach equilibrium and 14C is still out of equilibrium, then maybe the earth is not very old. Magnetic Field of the Earth Other factors can affect the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere. The earth has a magnetic field around it which helps protect us from harmful radiation from outer space. This magnetic field is decaying getting weaker. The stronger the field is around the earth, the fewer the number of cosmic rays that are able to reach the atmosphere. The cause for the long term variation of the C-14 level is not known. The variation is certainly partially the result of a change in the cosmic ray production rate of radiocarbon. The cosmic-ray flux, and hence the production rate of C-14, is a function not only of the solar activity but also of the magnetic dipole moment of the Earth. The field has always been losing energy despite its variations, so it cannot be more than 10,000 years old. Today it is about 10 percent weaker than it was when German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss started keeping tabs on it in 1845, scientists say. If the production rate of 14C in the atmosphere was less in the past, dates given using the carbon-14 method would incorrectly assume that more 14C had decayed out of a specimen than what has actually occurred. This would result in giving older dates than the. Genesis Flood What role might the have played in the amount of carbon? The amount of fossil fuels indicates there must have been a vastly larger quantity of vegetation in existence prior to the Flood than exists today. This means that the biosphere just prior to the Flood might have had 500 times more carbon in living organisms than today. When the Flood is taken into account along with the decay of the magnetic field, it is reasonable to believe that the assumption of equilibrium is a false assumption. Because of this false assumption, any age estimates using 14C prior to the Flood will give much older dates than the true age. Pre-Flood material would be dated at perhaps ten times the true age. The RATE Group Findings In 1997 an eight-year research project was started to investigate the age of the earth. The group was called the Radioisotopes and the Age of The Earth. The scientists reviewed the assumptions and procedures used in estimating the ages of rocks and fossils. The results of the carbon-14 dating demonstrated serious problems for long geologic ages. Similarly, a survey of the conventional radiocarbon journals resulted in more than forty examples of supposedly ancient organic materials, including limestones, that contained carbon-14, as reported by leading laboratories. Samples were then taken from ten different coal layers that, according to evolutionists, represent different time periods in the geologic column Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic. The RATE group obtained these ten coal samples from the U. Department of Energy Coal Sample Bank, from samples collected from major coalfields across the United States. The chosen coal samples, which dated millions to hundreds of millions of years old based on standard evolution time estimates, all contained measurable amounts of 14C. In all cases, careful precautions were taken to eliminate any possibility of contamination from other sources. This is a significant discovery. Since the half-life of 14C is relatively short 5,730 years , there should be no detectable 14C left after about 100,000 years. The average 14C estimated age for all the layers from these three time periods was approximately 50,000 years. These results indicate that the entire geologic column is less than 100,000 years old—and could be much younger. This confirms the and challenges the evolutionary idea of long geologic ages. Another noteworthy observation from the RATE group was the amount of 14C found in diamonds. Secular scientists have estimated the ages of diamonds to be millions to billions of years old using other radiometric dating methods. These methods are also based on questionable assumptions and are discussed elsewhere. Because of their hardness, diamonds the hardest known substance are extremely resistant to contamination through chemical exchange. Since diamonds are considered to be so old by evolutionary standards, finding any 14C in them would be strong support for a recent creation. The RATE group analyzed twelve diamond samples for possible carbon-14 content. Similar to the coal results, all twelve diamond samples contained detectable, but lower levels of 14C. These findings are powerful evidence that coal and diamonds cannot be the millions or billions of years old that evolutionists claim. Indeed, these RATE findings of detectable 14C in diamonds have been confirmed independently. Carbon-14 found in fossils at all layers of the geologic column, in coal and in diamonds, is evidence which confirms the biblical timescale of thousands of years and not billions. Conclusion All radiometric dating methods are based on assumptions about events that happened in the past. If the assumptions are accepted as true as is typically done in the evolutionary dating processes , results can be biased toward a desired age. In the reported ages given in textbooks and other journals, these evolutionary assumptions have not been questioned, while results inconsistent with long ages have been censored. When the assumptions were evaluated and shown faulty, the results supported the biblical account of a global Flood and young earth. Christians should not be afraid of radiometric dating methods. Carbon-14 dating is really the friend of Christians, and it supports a young earth. An alternative interpretation of the carbon-14 data is that the earth experienced a global flood catastrophe which laid down most of the rock strata and fossils. Whatever the source of the carbon-14, its presence in nearly every sample tested worldwide is a strong challenge to an ancient age. Carbon-14 data is now firmly on the side of the young-earth view of history. Libby, Radiocarbon Dating, Univ. Suess, On the relationship between radiocarbon dates and true sample ages, Radiocarbon, Vol. Roach, National Geographic News, September 9, 2004. Baumgarder, C-14 evidence for a recent global Flood and a young earth, Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Vol. Fossil wood in ancient lava flow yields radiocarbon, Creation Ex Nihilo 20 1 :24—27, 1997. Snelling, Dating dilemma: Fossil wood in ancient sandstone: Creation Ex Nihilo 21 3 :39—41, 1992. Snelling, Geological conflict: Young radiocarbon date for ancient fossil wood challenges fossil dating, Creation Ex Nihilo 22 2 :44—47, 2000. Riddle, Does radiometric dating prove the earth is old? Southon, Use of natural diamonds to monitor 14C AMS instrument backgrounds, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 259:282—287, 2007. DeYoung, , Master Books, Green Forest, Arkansas, 2005, 61.
