Radioisotope Dating with a Cyclotron: The sensitivity of radioisotope dating is improved by counting atoms rather than decays.
Open accessAbstract
By considering radioisotope dating as a problem in trace element detection, and by using the cyclotron as a high-energy mass spectrometer for this purpose, we have shown that one can greatly increase the maximum age that can be determined while simultaneously reducing the size of the sample required. The cyclotron can be used to detect atoms or simple molecules that are present at the 10 -16 level or greater. For 14 C dating one should be able to go back 40,000 to 100,000 years with 1- to 100-mg carbon samples; for 10 Be dating, 10 to 30 million years with 1-mm 3 to 10-cm 3 rock samples; for tritium dating, 160 years with a 1-liter water sample. The feasibility of the technique has been demonstrated experimentally by measuring the tritium/deuterium ratio in a sample 24 years old. For samples many half-lives old, the fractional error in the age is small even if rates of production or deposition of the isotopes. Although cyclotrons are expensive to build, their operating costs are relatively low. If several samples are dated per hour the cost per date may not be substantially higher than it is today for decay dating. There are already more than 50 cyclotrons in operation which have the potential to do radioisotope dating, and their application to important problems of dating and trace element analysis should prove very fruitful.
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The current generation of AMS instruments used for routine natural-level 14C measurements are, with few exceptions, electrostatic accelerators.
“Although the first AMS-based 14 C measurements were obtained on a cyclotron particle accelerator (Muller 1977), the current generation of AMS instruments used for routine natural level 14 C measurements, are, with a few exceptions, electrostatic accelerators (Tuniz et al. 1998;Tuniz and Norton 2008).”
From Misunderstandings Concerning the Significance of AMS Background <sup>14</sup>C Measurements (2018) · cites this paper as Muller 1977
Muller (1977) is cited for the first clause of the sentence, not for its statement about current electrostatic AMS instruments. In the Radiocarbon Dating section (page unavailable), Muller says cyclotron-based ¹⁴C dating appeared possible but that evaluating its sensitivity awaited further experimental development; the paper does not report the claimed first ¹⁴C measurements. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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Research works printed but not linked: 20
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Santos, G. M., Southon, J. R., Drenzek, N. J., Ziolkowski, L. A., Druffel, E., Xu, X., Zhang, D., Trumbore, S., Eglinton, T. I., & Hughen, K. A. (2010) · Radiocarbon · doi:10.1017/s0033822200046415 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
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Ingalls, A., & Pearson, A. (2005) · Oceanography · doi:10.5670/oceanog.2005.22 · Cited by 65 · see citing works
Use of natural diamonds to monitor 14C AMS instrument backgrounds
Taylor, R. E., & Southon, J. (2007) · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms · doi:10.1016/j.nimb.2007.01.239 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Misunderstandings Concerning the Significance of AMS Background <sup>14</sup>C Measurements
Taylor, R. E., Southon, J. R., & Santos, G. M. (2018) · Radiocarbon · doi:10.1017/rdc.2018.15 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- Muller, R. A.
- Affiliations
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- Corresponding author
- Muller, Richard A.
- ORCID
- Muller, Richard A.
- Venue
- Science
- Published
- 1977-04-29
- Volume
- 196
- Issue
- 4289
- Pages
- 489-494
- ISSN
- 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
- 1095-9203
- OpenAlex
- W2058379153
- Cited by
- 337
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 41.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- escholarship.org
- Locations
- Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Radiation › Radioactive Decay and Measurement Techniques
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Radiation › Nuclear Physics and Applications
- Keywords
- radiometric dating, cyclotron, trace element detection, radiocarbon dating, beryllium-10 dating, tritium dating, sample size reduction
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