Back to Home

God & Science Forum Message

Forums: Atm · Astrophotography · Blackholes · Blackholes2 · CCD · Celestron · Domes · Education
Eyepieces · Meade · Misc. · God and Science · SETI · Software · UFO · XEphem
RSS Button

Home | Discussion Forums | God and Science | Post
Login

Be the first pioneers to continue the Astronomy Discussions at our new Astronomy meeting place...
The Space and Astronomy Agora
How Can Carbon Sample Be Contaminated?

Forum List | Follow Ups | Post Message | Back to Thread Topics | In Response To
Posted by Alexander on July 10, 2001 17:49:43 UTC

Suppose, you have carbon-containing piece of tissue which came from wrapping of Egyptian mummy.

How in the world that tissue can be new carbon-contaminated? The tissue is dead, so no new organic molecules in the fiber were created in it (out of environmental CO2) since cotton was cut 5 thousand years ago - it only can decompose back to CO2, losing both C12 and C14 in equal rates. Thus, keepeng same ratio C14/C12 (if no radioactive decay of C14 takes place). But because it does take place, this ratio is slowly decreasing - about 2 times each 5600 years.

So, how can tissue carbon be replaced (contaminated) with more recent (or more old) mixture of C12/C14 ?

Follow Ups:

Login to Post
Additional Information
Google
 
Web www.astronomy.net
DayNightLine
About Astronomy Net | Advertise on Astronomy Net | Contact & Comments | Privacy Policy
Unless otherwise specified, web site content Copyright 1994-2024 John Huggins All Rights Reserved
Forum posts are Copyright their authors as specified in the heading above the post.
"dbHTML," "AstroGuide," "ASTRONOMY.NET" & "VA.NET"
are trademarks of John Huggins