Question
Carbon-14 dating works for fossils up to about 75,000 years old.
Most dinosaurs went extinct 65.5 million years ago. Can 14C be used to date dinosaur bones?
No, 14C can only be used to date dinosaur teeth, which are much stronger than bones.
Yes, the bones continued to take in 14C, even after the dinosaur died.
Yes, the bones contained 14C when the dinosaur died so it can be measured to determine the fossil’s age.
No, the 14C present in the dinosaur when it died would decay too much to be measured after 65.5 million years.
Most dinosaurs went extinct 65.5 million years ago. Can 14C be used to date dinosaur bones?
No, 14C can only be used to date dinosaur teeth, which are much stronger than bones.
Yes, the bones continued to take in 14C, even after the dinosaur died.
Yes, the bones contained 14C when the dinosaur died so it can be measured to determine the fossil’s age.
No, the 14C present in the dinosaur when it died would decay too much to be measured after 65.5 million years.
Answers
GPT-4o mini
No, the 14C present in the dinosaur when it died would decay too much to be measured after 65.5 million years. Carbon-14 dating is effective for dating materials up to about 50,000 to 75,000 years old, beyond which the amount of 14C remaining becomes too small to measure accurately. Since dinosaurs went extinct approximately 65.5 million years ago, any original Carbon-14 in their bones would have decayed to negligible levels long before we could realistically measure it.