RE: How accurate is Radiometric Dating?
February 18, 2023 at 8:11 pm
(This post was last modified: February 18, 2023 at 9:02 pm by Anomalocaris.)
It’s not the inconstancy of the rate of decay that puts unavoidable error bars on radiometrid dating. It is the uncertainty surrounding just how much of the parent element there were at the moment of the event you are trying to date, whether certain quantity of daughter element had already been there at that moment, and if there was some way we have not yet been able to think of or control for that allows some of the parent and daughter element to escape or be removed, thus screwing up the ratio of parent to daughter elements and thus the implied radiometrid age.
However, the possibility of such disturbances to parent-daughter element ration screwing up radiomatric dating can be reduced by cross check several different radioactive decay clocks, if these are available. The chance that several radiometrid clocks are disturbed by the exact same amount so they all agree on the wrong age is virtually nil.
If several different radiometric clocks disagree in statisistically significant way, then you have some thinking, anssessment and experimentation to do to figure out which one(s) could have been disturbed.
However, the possibility of such disturbances to parent-daughter element ration screwing up radiomatric dating can be reduced by cross check several different radioactive decay clocks, if these are available. The chance that several radiometrid clocks are disturbed by the exact same amount so they all agree on the wrong age is virtually nil.
If several different radiometric clocks disagree in statisistically significant way, then you have some thinking, anssessment and experimentation to do to figure out which one(s) could have been disturbed.
