Sun Aug 25 18:22:38 1996

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From: "Dave Washburn" 
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Date: Sun, 25 Aug 1996 16:13:23 -7
Subject: Re: Carbon dating
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Bob Waltz wrote:
> But I will observe that "temperature change," "weather change," and
> "chemical breakdown" have no effect on the results of C-14 dating,
> which is a nuclear process dependent *only* on the radioactive
> behavior of C-14.

I believe his point was that the generation and uptake of C-14 in 
relation to other carbon isotopes is affected by these factors (as 
opposed to its decay rate, which you correctly point out is a 
constant nuclear process), and hence we can't really assume that 
quantities of C-12, C-13 and C-14 will have started out equal.  And 
without that equality factor, C-14 dating is on even less certain 
footing than we thought it was.

I'm not enough of a molecular scientist to say whether I agree with 
this assessment, I just wanted to point out that this is what I 
understood him to be saying.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html
"Just reach out, and He'll reach in..."

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