Professor Gerry McCormac and Dr Paula Reimer, Principal Scientists
A recent pointer from the folks at Lab Spaces covers an intriguing development for eggheads in the world of materials science. What’s more, the article does a good job of explaining just what the hell carbon dating is, which has always been a mystery to me.
The principle of radiocarbon dating is that plants and animals absorb trace amounts of radioactive carbon-14 from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere while they are alive but stop doing so when they die. The carbon-14 decays from archaeological and geological samples so the amount left in the sample gives an indication of how old the sample is.
And so we can date material remains and artifacts with some measure of clarity. The scientists at Queen’s University have improved that clarity a bit more.
Dr Reimer said: “The new radiocarbon calibration curve will be used worldwide by archaeologists and earth scientists to convert radiocarbon ages into a meaningful time scale comparable to historical dates or other estimates of calendar age.
“It is significant because this agreed calibration curve now extends over the entire normal range of radiocarbon dating, up to 50,000 years before today. Comparisons of the new curve to ice-core or other climate archives will provide information about changes in solar activity and ocean circulation.”
Which is cool because I love thinking about the past. Wondering about evolution is the same as wondering about history, only without any of the exaggerated second-hand accounts and lots more fossilized feces.
I hope this development helps us to better understand where to put things on the giant, collective timeline of the human-driven age.
