carbon dating
5
3.8
- noun
- /ˈkɑrbən ˈdeɪtɪŋ/
- Specialized
:
datación por carbono
- Another team recently used carbon dating to estimate that glomalin lasts 7 to 42 years, depending on conditions.
So if we look at how much of that is leftover, we can actually do something known as carbon dating.
- So if we look at how much of that is leftover, we can actually do something known as carbon dating.
- They discredited carbon dating and so now he's saying like the Ark Encounter and he wants to use public funds for this.
Examples
-
Villagers apparently had time to escape when the Loma Caldera Volcano blasted open in about A.D. 595, according to carbon dating.
Academic text (2009) -
Distinctive pottery and carbon dating of organic remains marked Varna as a Copper Age site, and it remains the world's earliest major gold hoard.
Academic text (2011) -
However, carbon dating analysis tells us that...
-
According to his analysis, the carbon dating showed that the move to agriculture had happened at least 500 years earlier.
Academic text (2008) -
For example, carbon dating could place him in a particular dynasty.
Academic text (2006) -
Carbon dating could also verify that the sheepskin is from the same time as the mummy.
Academic text (2006) -
A group of archaeologists, using carbon dating, proved that the grave was in fact a hoax.
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Recently, Vellanoweth pooled resources with a group of archaeologists, led by Torben Rick of the Smithsonian Institution, to fund carbon dating of this skull, along with a few other fox remains thought to predate human settlement.
Academic text (2010) -
Paleontologists determine the age of a fossil using carbon dating.
-
A group of archaeologists, using carbon dating, proved that the grave was in fact a hoax.
Synonyms
2
4.4
A way to find the age of objects that were once alive by measuring how much carbon-14 they have
1
3.9
A way to find how old something that used to live is by measuring its radioactive carbon
How Accurate
- Specialized
1
9.9
- Specialized
5
3.8
18
3.3
1
3.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'carbon' names the element and 'dating' denotes determining age, so the phrase literally means dating using carbon. This noun+noun method-denoting pattern is common cross-linguistically (e.g. Spanish datación por carbono) and a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The noun carbon dating comes from a simple idea: living things take in carbon, and when they die that carbon slowly disappears, so by measuring how much is left scientists can date the object and learn its 'age'.