Radiocarbon dating samples Radiocarbon dating samples Samples used for radiocarbon dating must be handled carefully to avoid contamination. Not all material can be dated by this method; only samples containing organic matter can be tested: the date found will be the date of death of the plants or animals from which the sample originally came. Samples for dating need to be converted into a form suitable for measuring the content; this can mean conversion to gaseous, liquid, or solid form, depending on the measurement technique to be used. Before this can be done, however, the sample must be treated to remove any contamination
Marine isotope stage stages 1–16 the SPECMAP figures are within 5 kya of the figures given here. All figures up to MIS 21 are taken from Aitken & Stokes, Table 1.4, except for the sub-stages of MIS 5, which are from Wright's Table 1.1. Some older stages, in mya (millions of years ago): Marine isotope stage Marine isotope stages (MIS), marine oxygen-isotope stages, or oxygen isotope stages (OIS), are alternating warm and cool periods in the Earth's paleoclimate, deduced from oxygen isotope data reflecting changes in temperature derived from data from deep sea core samples. Working backwards from the present, which is MIS