Found On The Dorset Coast

[nicebloke1]

150 million sea monster fossil. So my question is how on earth can they date such.

[Peter Pedant]

The numerical ages of rocks in the Geologic Time Scale are determined by radiometric dating, which makes use of a process called radioactive decay – the same process that goes on inside a nuclear reactor to produce heat to make electricity. Radiometric dating works because radioactive elements decay at a known rate.

and they dont tell you which BUT

1. needs to be present ( hem hem)

2. Needs to have a few isotopes

3.one of which decay slowly compared to the others

I think it is silicon but what the hell

[Peter Pedant]

DOI - come from Bridport whcih is near and spent summers in Charmouth whcih is on the Jurassic coast

[bhg481]

They were showing it on BBC Breakfast this morning and I'm sure they said it was found some weeks/months ago.

[nicebloke1]

Its on NOW BBC

[nicebloke1]

Well it will be after news on war in gaza

[Peter Pedant]

oh Potassium and argon

more than you ever wanted to know, here

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/geology/radiometric-age-dating.htm#:~:text=To%20determine%20the%20ages%20in,on%20the%20geologic%20time%20scale.

[Peter Pedant]

is this the one that ate the two ickle baby dynosaurs?

Found around 4 y ago and re-examined. ( which I think happened to the first or second ornithopteryx in 1875 - one said - this is a bird and someone said: o  god mine ( old joe) is a bird too! ) [ but he er hadnt noticed

[Peter Pedant]

is it a fake?

you means someone walked along, dropped it down a trouser leg, went off whistling and then came back and said - "my god!"

surely not

nichty nichty ( nochty)

No one wd plant fossils - er wd they?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishwa_Jit_Gupta

chandigarh fossil planting scandal. 1990

[newmodarmy]

nicebloke- would you be less sceptical or suspicious if they'd simply said "between 100 million and 200 million years old"

These are ways in which it's done.

https://www.fossilera.com/pages/dating-fossils

I've also seen someone (David Attenborough) showing how they study the layers of rock.

[pastafreak]

This BBC article just came up on my news feed...

https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2023-07-10/mysterious-object-on-jurassic-coast-turns-out-to-be-oldest-fossil-of-its-kind

[pastafreak]

Darn...that's not the link I copied 🤔😐

[pastafreak]

Let's try this...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67650247

[nicebloke1]

Thanks for the link^^ Now I've seen what they have found and where it was, along with posts from others on how they arrive at such a conlusion, then yes I now believe. Seeing is believing they say. But when first seeing the headline this morning for the first time, and no other info then one will be sceptical. Is santa real? :0)

[douglas9401]

Transantas identify as such so, yes.

[jourdain2]

Santa is the spirit of Christmas, nicebloke - so of course he's real!  😀

I was sure I'd heard about this fossil discovery some time ago as well.

[New Judge]

If they had found it last year, they would still have said it was 150m years old. They would not have said it was 149,999,999 years old. So their date is just an estimate, not to be relied on at all.   😀 

[bazwillrun]

"scientists use a variety of techniques to date rocks and fossils precisely. Most often, they measure the amounts of particular radioactive elements—often radiocarbon or potassium—present to determine when a rock was formed, or when an animal or plant died. Some techniques work best with materials millions or even billions of years old. Others only work for much younger materials. And each method only works for certain materials, ranging from volcanic rock to charcoal to bone.

Radiocarbon Dating

Living plants and animals absorb carbon from the atmosphere, including carbon-14—a radioactive form of the element produced when cosmic rays from the sun interact with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. But when organisms die, they no longer take in any carbon, and the carbon-14 in their bodies begins to decay at a known rate. Scientists use particle accelerators to measure the amount of carbon-14 in biological materials to determine when that organism died.".....

[andres]

Might be better just  to say that the fossil is probably over a million years old and leave it at that.

[nicebloke1]

14.06 NJ thats a hell of an estimate. What percentage do you think they would allow either way for being off.

[Old_Geezer]

They just looked at the diary it was holding.