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Radiocarbon Dating: Development of a Nobel Method

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Radiocarbon and Climate Change

Abstract

This chapter reviews the key events associated with the development of the radiocarbon (14C) dating method immediately following World War II by Willard F. Libby (1909–1980) and his collaborators, James R. Arnold (1923–2013), and Ernest C. Anderson (1920–2013). It also considers the historical background and earlier discoveries that Libby and others drew upon in forming the concepts that he employed in developing this technique. Libby received the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for, in the words of the Nobel citation, his “method to use Carbon-14 for age determinations in archeology, geology, geophysics and other sciences.”

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Acknowledgements

Portions of this chapter were written during a sabbatical year provided by the University of California, Riverside with supplemental support from the Gabriel R. Vierra Memorial Fund. The support of Ellen Druffel, Sue Trumbore, and John Southon of the University of California, Irvine W. M. Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory is very much appreciated as well as the comments of Ellen Druffel on a draft of this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA, USA

    R. E. Taylor

  2. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    R. E. Taylor

  3. Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    R. E. Taylor

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  1. R. E. Taylor
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cetr for Ecosys Sci & Society and Dept, Northern Arizona University, Gainesville, Florida, USA

    Edward A.G. Schuur

  2. Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California, USA

    Ellen Druffel

  3. Max Planck Inst for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany

    Susan E. Trumbore

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Taylor, R.E. (2016). Radiocarbon Dating: Development of a Nobel Method. In: Schuur, E., Druffel, E., Trumbore, S. (eds) Radiocarbon and Climate Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25643-6_2

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