Can we carbon Date a Gas?

[kevinmorais]

Main Question or Discussion Point

Can we Carbon Date a Gas or must it always be a solid?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Maybe. Which gas and date since when, i.e. what event?

 

[DaveE]

You can measure carbon isotopes in CO₂ in a GC/MS. Here is one paper that does that (chosen at random from google search):
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bms.1200120913

Edit: oops this wasn't CO₂, it was "organic gasses".

 

[DaveE]

And this paper using an optical spectroscopy technique:
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/106/27/10928.full.pdf

 

[sophiecentaur]

Can we Carbon Date a Gas or must it always be a solid?

As long as the gas has been totally isolated from the atmospheric CO2 over the millennia, the Carbon 14 content can be relied on not to have changed. Plants lock it in more reliably.

 

[kevinmorais]

You can measure carbon isotopes in CO₂ in a GC/MS. Here is one paper that does that (chosen at random from google search):
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bms.1200120913

Edit: oops this wasn't CO₂, it was "organic gasses".

That's OK, Thank You

 

[kevinmorais]

Maybe. Which gas and date since when, i.e. what event?

Thanks But My Question was Answered :)