Re: Creation Evidence Museum

On 27/11/2024 11:18, LDagget wrote:

 I'm not well versed in how to test the age of concretions but
there are likely ways. It would be best to know exactly where
the hammer was found so tests could also be made on the surrounding
limestone sources.

Dating of recent limestone deposits, especially precipitated ones, is usually performed using Uranium-Thorium dating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium%E2%80%93thorium_dating
This class of techniques has a nominal range from the present to several hundred thousand years. They depend on the essential insolubility of Thorium. I would expect that at low ages errors from trace coprecipitational or detrital Thorium become significant (but a cursory web search doesn't find any discussion of the magnitude of this - I imagine a 19th century sample being dated as pre-Columbian). As is obvious the method depends on the sample being from a chemically closed system - consequently uranium leaching is a known issue.
--
alias Ernest Major