"Let me explain. If someone sends me a sample requesting a radiocarbon date, but they also think that the sample is in the area of 100 million years old, it means that they are misapplying a method."
TC--So you agree that all the dating methods are not consistant?
Moose reply: No, he's saying that different dating methods are suitible for different situations. Carbon dating is suitable for organic remains 50k years or less old.
"At the same time, if I am working with a sample that has a large amount of C14 in it, I might be able to treat it differently than if there is an extremely small amount to get more accurate or less expensive results."
TC--Is this about expenses or accuracy? If your argument revolves around consistant accurate dates claimed by the different radiometric dating methods, that means that if you date something with say the Potassium/Argon or Uranium232 (I'm not sure what the number was) and get ranges in the hundreds of millions or so, then that should easilly and is 'required' that Carbon14 should be near non-existant in your sample, is this not correct?
Moose reply: Look - C14 dating is used for carbon bearing samples. The other dating methods are used for rock dating. TC, you're doing an apples and oranges comparison.
"No. Some things are 50ky old others are 12 ky old. Some are less and some are more. I question your data, but that is immaterial. It is not necessary to have dates spread evenly across the possible range of carbon dates."
TC--It is necessary to give a relatively even date, instead of all over the chart, meaning if you find a fossil, and then find a fossil lying next to it, and they are 30,000 year diffence, that means that you have to preserve one of them for those 30,000 years without such decay, and a landslide is not acceptable for all these cases, as strata layering is consistant throughout both samples.
Moose reply: If indeed in place, the fossils are of the same age. Such a situation would call for a dating method other than C14, as the fossils contain no Carbon. If you date volcanic ash beds below and above the fossils, it will give you a maximum and minimum age bracket for the fossils. (in saying this, I must admit I know nothing about the dating of the Carbon in Calcium Carbonate - maybe it can be done).
"Usually we don't date dinosaur bones by radiocarbon methods."
TC--I can see why, they despise those young dates. If they didn't realise what kind of bone it was, and didn't know where its place of origin or strata it was found in (as you give them when you do want something dated) they would first assume that it would have been burried in the Quaternary Period.
Moose reply: Dinosaur bones don't contain carbon. And even if they did, the C14 would have been long decayed away.
Enough here - Bring your questions to the "Dating Methods Controversy Discussion" topic.
Moose
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BS degree, geology, '83
Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Old Earth evolution - Yes
Godly creation - Maybe
™ Version 4.2
