How to Use carbon dating in a Sentence
carbon dating
noun-
For now, McKechnie and his team will send the shell off for carbon dating and other analyses.
—Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 27 Aug. 2019
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The mystery began when carbon dating established the tooth was just 6,500 years old.
—Jessica Marshall, Discover Magazine, 19 Sep. 2017
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Ginobili, who is 40 years old according to carbon dating, is in what many believe is his last decade in the NBA.
—Scott Ostler, San Antonio Express-News, 23 Apr. 2018
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The carbon dating regulation, first proposed in 2017, is meant to close some of those loopholes.
—Rachel Nuwer, National Geographic, 8 Apr. 2019
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The canoe was in use around A.D. 800, according to carbon dating the archaeologists did on a sliver of wood before it was lifted out of the lake.
—Sophie Carson, USA TODAY, 10 Nov. 2021
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Though some experts suspected the remains were fake relics dating to the medieval era, the new carbon dating supports the conclusion that the bones belong to Eanswythe.
—Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Mar. 2020
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Starting July 1, anyone in Japan who wishes to register and sell a whole elephant tusk must first prove its age through carbon dating.
—Rachel Nuwer, National Geographic, 8 Apr. 2019
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Scientists will conduct carbon dating tests to determine the whale bones' age.
—Fox News, 20 June 2020
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Techniques such as carbon dating, which can determine the age of an artifact, can be done only by removing small portions of the skull, which the Catholic Church has not allowed.
—National Geographic, 12 Sep. 2017
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Another test is to measure the rate of radioactive decay of certain elements in the rocks, also known as carbon dating.
—Washington Post, 16 May 2018
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Twenty-two carbon dating analyses done at different times by different labs have confirmed that these sites date to the first half of the sixth millennium BCE.
—Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 14 Nov. 2017
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Using carbon dating, Goldfinger found that nearly a dozen earthquakes occurred throughout history on both faults at the same time.
—oregonlive, 6 Dec. 2019
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The carbon dating requirement will apply only to whole tusks registered after July 1, not to the 170 tons of tusks already stockpiled.
—Rachel Nuwer, National Geographic, 8 Apr. 2019
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Using carbon dating the team was able to confirm the human presence and transformation of the Amazon rainforest landscape for thousands of years.
—Santiago Flórez, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 July 2021
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But the Tel Lachish comb was found in a much later archaeological context, and carbon dating failed to determine its exact age, the article notes.
—Eleanor H. Reich, USA TODAY, 12 Nov. 2022
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King Saebert gets ruled out Since most of the organic material rotted away in the Prittlewell tomb's acidic soil, obtaining radio carbon dates was always going to be tricky, says Hirst.
—Roff Smith, National Geographic, 8 May 2019
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But when the carbon dating results came back, extracting it suddenly became an urgent matter.
—Sophie Carson, USA TODAY, 10 Nov. 2021
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Goldfinger concedes that carbon dating is an inexact science and earthquakes that appear simultaneous in the record gleaned from the sediment cores could have in fact occurred years or even decades apart.
—oregonlive, 6 Dec. 2019
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Tracking these sediments at multiple sites, combined with carbon dating of materials in the sediment, allowed the researchers to reconstruct the sea level over the last 5,000 years or so.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 21 Dec. 2022
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Like carbon dating, scientists use isotopes and context clues to calculate the approximate age of fossils.
—Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 23 Sep. 2020
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By using carbon dating in a tree killed in the lava, geologists determined the eruption was in approximately 1650.
—Tom Stienstra, San Francisco Chronicle, 6 June 2018
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These include the ability to recover ancient Neanderthal DNA, carbon dating, the use of lasers to record artifact positions in three dimensions and even the analysis of tartar on teeth.
—Adrian Woolfson, WSJ, 2 Oct. 2020
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The wildlife detective work involves cutting up seized artifacts including bangle bracelets and statues of Chinese deities and subjecting them to carbon dating to determine when the elephants were killed.
—Bloomberg.com, 15 Jan. 2018
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By carbon dating the bones, archaeologists showed the Tunnug 1 burials spanned centuries, beginning around A.D. 100.
—Andrew Curry, National Geographic, 22 Sep. 2020
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Once the amberat disintegrates, Holmgren and fellow scientists can carbon date the plants inside these natural time capsules.
—Sadie Witkowski, Smithsonian, 15 Nov. 2019
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Actually, a geologist — what does the carbon dating reveal about their only trophy?
—New York Times, 23 Feb. 2021
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However, an archaeological report on the cemetery raised the possibility that the human remains in the cave were part of a specific burial and suggested radio carbon dating to find out for sure.
—Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 1 Oct. 2019
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The analysis comes from statistical techniques, plus improved carbon dating.
—Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 25 June 2021
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The project is part of a scientific revolution that is profoundly expanding the type of information that can be gleaned from historical texts and artifacts, from X-ray and CT scanning to carbon dating and genetic sequencing.
—Jo Marchant, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Nov. 2022
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It’s used in carbon dating of archaeological artifacts because its radioactive decay is slow and predictable.
—Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 Apr. 2020
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'carbon dating.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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