Can someone please help me on Carbon Dating &Thermal Luminescence Dating

I Desperately need help on the subject!!

I know absolutly nothing about thermo luminescence dating, but i know a little about C14 dating:

 

Carbon 14 is caused by the transformation of ordinary nitrogen(N14) by cosmic rays.

The atomic mass stays unchanged, but a proton absorbs a electron and transforms into a neutron, the elemental number is shifted one the the left(or one less proton)

Which, by coiencidence is carbon. Ordinary carbon has a atomic mass of 12.01, carbon 14 is, well, 14. The process is called electron capture/positron emmision, since no mass is lost/gained.

Carbon 14 has a half life of about 5351 or so years(im not too sure). Lets just say 5000 then.

The C14 dating is reliable up to 50000 years, after that our techniques are too primitive to be reliable, so they cannot be used after that amount of time.

Plants absorb the C14 though photosynthisis, with out any care if its not ordinary carbon, then it can be eaten by other animals and the C14 is moved through the ecosystem.

A minor problem with C14 dating is that if a microbe absorbs C14 and it dies at the ocean floor, and stays there for thousands of years, and then is reabsorbed. It can go back into the ecosystem, but the C14 has decayed, so if the plants/animals that ate the microbes with little C14 in them, scientists that find These same organisms will get a faulty reading, it will say that the specimen is much older that it really is(this is rare).

 

Hope i helped

Anarchaus.

Carbon 14 is caused by the transformation of ordinary nitrogen(N14) by cosmic rays.

The atomic mass stays unchanged' date=' but a proton absorbs a electron and transforms into a neutron, the elemental number is shifted one the the left(or one less proton)

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C-14 is actually produced by neutron bombardment: N-14 (n,p) C-14 (i.e. neutron in, proton out)

thermoluminescence dating

 

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