How to Use carbon dating in a Sentence

carbon dating

noun
  • That place of the carbon dating machine, that was in Padua.
    — Todd Gilchrist, IndieWire, 24 June 2026
  • Though there have been several attempts to contest the carbon dating results, none of them has stuck.
    — Nathaniel Scharping, Discover Magazine, 2 Nov. 2020
  • Scientists will conduct carbon dating tests to determine the whale bones' age.
    — Fox News, 20 June 2020
  • For now, McKechnie and his team will send the shell off for carbon dating and other analyses.
    — Lorraine Boissoneault, Smithsonian, 27 Aug. 2019
  • Pigment samples from these works can also be used to help with identifying the age of the site using radio carbon dating.
    — Francesca Aton, ARTnews.com, 11 July 2024
  • The mystery began when carbon dating established the tooth was just 6,500 years old.
    — Jessica Marshall, Discover Magazine, 19 Sep. 2017
  • But when the carbon dating results came back, extracting it suddenly became an urgent matter.
    — Sophie Carson, USA TODAY, 10 Nov. 2021
  • The carbon dating regulation, first proposed in 2017, is meant to close some of those loopholes.
    — Rachel Nuwer, National Geographic, 8 Apr. 2019
  • Another test is to measure the rate of radioactive decay of certain elements in the rocks, also known as carbon dating.
    — Washington Post, 16 May 2018
  • Using carbon dating, Goldfinger found that nearly a dozen earthquakes occurred throughout history on both faults at the same time.
    — oregonlive, 6 Dec. 2019
  • Starting July 1, anyone in Japan who wishes to register and sell a whole elephant tusk must first prove its age through carbon dating.
    — Rachel Nuwer, National Geographic, 8 Apr. 2019
  • Ginobili, who is 40 years old according to carbon dating, is in what many believe is his last decade in the NBA.
    — Scott Ostler, San Antonio Express-News, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Like carbon dating, scientists use isotopes and context clues to calculate the approximate age of fossils.
    — Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 23 Sep. 2020
  • Actually, a geologist — what does the carbon dating reveal about their only trophy?
    — New York Times, 23 Feb. 2021
  • Though some experts suspected the remains were fake relics dating to the medieval era, the new carbon dating supports the conclusion that the bones belong to Eanswythe.
    — Theresa MacHemer, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Mar. 2020
  • Using carbon dating the team was able to confirm the human presence and transformation of the Amazon rainforest landscape for thousands of years.
    — Santiago Flórez, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 July 2021
  • Goldfinger concedes that carbon dating is an inexact science and earthquakes that appear simultaneous in the record gleaned from the sediment cores could have in fact occurred years or even decades apart.
    — oregonlive, 6 Dec. 2019
  • Techniques such as carbon dating, which can determine the age of an artifact, can be done only by removing small portions of the skull, which the Catholic Church has not allowed.
    — National Geographic, 12 Sep. 2017
  • But the Tel Lachish comb was found in a much later archaeological context, and carbon dating failed to determine its exact age, the article notes.
    — Eleanor H. Reich, USA TODAY, 12 Nov. 2022
  • Reher-Langberg hopes future carbon dating and pollen analysis might answer some lingering questions, for instance about what kind of textile production went on at the site.
    — James Brooks, Fortune, 24 June 2026
  • Twenty-two carbon dating analyses done at different times by different labs have confirmed that these sites date to the first half of the sixth millennium BCE.
    — Diana Gitig, Ars Technica, 14 Nov. 2017
  • Once the amberat disintegrates, Holmgren and fellow scientists can carbon date the plants inside these natural time capsules.
    — Sadie Witkowski, Smithsonian, 15 Nov. 2019
  • The carbon dating requirement will apply only to whole tusks registered after July 1, not to the 170 tons of tusks already stockpiled.
    — Rachel Nuwer, National Geographic, 8 Apr. 2019
  • By using carbon dating in a tree killed in the lava, geologists determined the eruption was in approximately 1650.
    — Tom Stienstra, San Francisco Chronicle, 6 June 2018
  • However, an archaeological report on the cemetery raised the possibility that the human remains in the cave were part of a specific burial and suggested radio carbon dating to find out for sure.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 1 Oct. 2019
  • King Saebert gets ruled out Since most of the organic material rotted away in the Prittlewell tomb's acidic soil, obtaining radio carbon dates was always going to be tricky, says Hirst.
    — Roff Smith, National Geographic, 8 May 2019
  • Tracking these sediments at multiple sites, combined with carbon dating of materials in the sediment, allowed the researchers to reconstruct the sea level over the last 5,000 years or so.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 21 Dec. 2022
  • These include the ability to recover ancient Neanderthal DNA, carbon dating, the use of lasers to record artifact positions in three dimensions and even the analysis of tartar on teeth.
    — Adrian Woolfson, WSJ, 2 Oct. 2020
  • After starting his career working in carbon dating – a process that involves tracking the decay of radioactive isotopes – the former semi-pro baseball player studied radiochemistry, which involves the use of radioactive substances in everything from power to medicine.
    — Andre Mouchard, Oc Register, 10 Oct. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'carbon dating.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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