Concepts Shale often contains fossils of leaves. If gastropods were collected from shale containing leaf fossils, could you use radiocarbon dating to assign a numerical date to this rock unit? Explain. plssssss help!

Question

Concepts Shale often contains fossils of leaves. If  gastropods were collected from shale containing leaf fossils, could you use radiocarbon dating to assign a numerical date to this rock unit? Explain. plssssss help!

zach298 · Answer

No. Radiocarbon dating has an effective range to only about 62,000 years ago (and the further back you go, the higher your error will be). The fossils in the shale are much older than that, so you can be sure that the leaves are not recent enough to be dated that way.