Do you think that Carbon Dating is an accurate way to determine somethings age? Why or Why not?

Yes, when used with dendrochronology and Stratigraphy to verify, it is an absolute dating method for organic objects <50,000 years old.
However, samples need to be large and uncontaminated (by recent carbon). Compensation tables (between C-14 and C-12) need to be current. The material to be dated cannot be too old, 50,000 years, or too young because in the first case the carbon has almost or completely decayed and in the second, none or very little has decayed. So, with all these variables, that is why Carbon Dating must be verified with another dating method.

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what other dating methods would work?
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by anonymous on January 10th, 2007
For artifacts that are really old >50,000 years: Potassium-Argon Dating. The detection methods are becomming more exact, so K-Ar dating can be used for items as early as 20,000 years BCE too.
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by anonymous on January 10th, 2007
Thanks
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by anonymous on January 10th, 2007
So actually, rsr, you're saying carbon dating is not really THAT accurate on fossils dating back more than 50,000 years?
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by Brightness on January 10th, 2007
Correct Brightness. Each dating method has it's pros and cons, they should be cross-checked.
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by anonymous on January 10th, 2007

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