Advances in carbon dating using high energy mass spectrometers

Abstract

In spite of carbon dating being over thirty years old and the fact that in that period many thousands of dates have been produced, the conventional counting technique still suffers from certain drawbacks. Comparatively large samples are required, the time for an analysis is long, and the signal-to-background ratios obtainable are low. Recent work in a number of laboratories has shown that in spite of the very low ¹⁴C: ¹²C ratio in natural carbon, it is possible to measure this ratio using a mass spectrometer of special design operating on ions accelerated by several megavolts. The problems are discussed and a description given of such a dedicated ¹⁴C dating system which is presently under construction at Oxford.