Can radiocarbon dating be used to determine the age of petrified wood?

Answer 1

Carbon 14 would not usually be used to date a piece of petrified wood.

1. The useful date range for C14 is perhaps 20 times the half life - but that is not more than 110 000 years - too short for many petrified woods.

2. Petrified wood as the name implies have been converted into stone - there may well be no carbon left.

3. There are techniques for dating the minerals which replaced the wood, but establishing the actual time-line for the process is rather an uncertain process. Ordinary stratigraphy would likely be a better bet. But if there are companion material, such as pollen grains, these might offer an approach.

Answer 2

Scientists have found the study of radioactive decay useful in determining the age of artifacts and fossils. Carbon-14 is used to determine the age of dead animals, plants, and humans. The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years. In a living organism, the amount of carbon-14 remains in constant balance with the levels of the isotope in the atmosphere or ocean. This balance occurs because living organisms take in and release carbon. For example, animals take in carbon from food such as plants and release carbon as carbon dioxide. While life processes go on, any carbon-14 nucleus that decays is replaced by another from the environment. When the plant or animal dies, the decaying nuclei no longer can be replaced.

Answer 3

It cannot.

If something is petrified, it means that the original minerals that made up the item (say a piece of wood for example), have been removed and replaced by minerals. This basically leaves a mineral "mold" of the original item, the original piece of wood or bone would long since had disintegrated and vanished. In most cases this takes millions of years (under the right conditions).

As there is no carbon left in the petrified wood, it cannot be carbon dated.

Carbon dating can only be performed on old materials that still have some of the original carbon content in them.

The maximum limit for reliable carbon dating is up to about 45,000 years.

Answer 4

No. Petrified wood is not wood anymore it's rock (minerals) and only once living things can be carbon dated.