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
Hydrogen isotope biogeochemistry hour to day long timescales. This rapid exchange is particularly problematic for measurements of bulk organic material with these functional groups because isotope compositions are more likely to reflect the source water and not the isotope effect. For this reason, records of paleoclimate that are not measuring ancient waters, rely on other isotopic markers. Advancements in the 1990s held promising potential to resolve this problem: samples were equilibrated with two variations of heavy water and compared. Their ratios represent an exchange factor that can calibrate measurements to correct for hydrogen and deuterium swapping. For some time, researchers believed that large