Abstract: "Seldom has a single discovery in chemistry had such an impact on the thinking of so many fields of human endeavour", says Willard Libby’s nomination for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. Such is the power of the discovery of radiocarbon dating – to order events in absolute time through Earth’s history, making it one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the 20th century. The technique has been applied in a plethora of fields since its discovery – in atmospheric sciences, hydrology, geology, paleoclimatology, medicine. But perhaps its most significant impact was in the human sciences – ordering cultural events and the emergence of humans as a species – ‘The Radiocarbon Revolution’ in Archaeology.
Join me this Wednesday, as we discuss the science behind this dating systematics, the fascinating instruments that do the measurements, the challenges behind its use - starting from the calibration curve to nuclear weapons testing, and finally check out some stunning radiocarbon dates that redefined our understanding of the world and our own past!
About the speaker: Dr. P. Ramya Bala is currently working on ‘forest fire-vegetation-human inter-relationships in the tropical dry forests of southern India’, and radiocarbon dating forms the backbone of her research, providing chronology to the events of the past. She has worked for 3 months with the Department of Chronological Research, TANDETRON AMS Lab, Nagoya University, Japan, during her PhD. She presented her findings on experimentation with methods in radiocarbon dating of wetlands in the ‘Radiocarbon in the Environment’ conference, 2014, held at Queen’s University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has just returned from her second stint at a radiocarbon lab, Inter-University Accelerator Centre (IUAC), New Delhi.