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C14 in fossils

6 August 2015
Geology

At www.icr.org/article/8829 .. we have a post on carbon dating fossils. The link came via the contact email address on our web site and the argument being made is that measurable amounts of radio carbon should not exist in objects older than 100,000 years ago because they should have decayed into nitrogen 14 before then. The author claims it is an anomaly as radiocarbon is found in material millions of years of age. On the face of it they have highlighted a problem as C14 dates are based on a known rate of decay – and that includes wood and other organic material, which can of course survive for millions of years buried in sediments or in niche locations where bacteria cannot thrive. The authors, and the site, is Creationist, and they say they think the Earth has a Biblical age – presumably in thousands rather than millions of years.

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