Petrified Wood In Days, Not Millions Of Years

prostoalex writes "Any petrified wood enthusiast would tell you that a quality product takes millions of years to mature, following Mother Nature's course, which, of course, is very frustrating for anyone experimenting. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory now managed to get the process in few days, USA Today says. The scientific achievement will be beneficial for "separating industrial chemicals, filtering pollutants and soaking up contamination"."

Comments

Re:Carbon Dating

[Stroman Rebar]

The process they are using will not (shouldn't anyway) affect the isotopic distribution of the carbon, so technically you could probably still "carbon date" it. But, since they were using boards bought at a local lumberyard, it wouldn't tell them much.

If you want more on the specifics of carbon dating, check the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating

As far as accelerating radioactive decay, there is some interesting research out there about bombarding fission products with accelerated particles and causing a several-fold reduction in decay times. A former ASU nuclear physics professor envisioned one method for it:

http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess/

A note of caution: The "Roy Process" web site is run by the former professor's "Agent" so its slanted more for sales than education.

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[Hoch]

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I love that you can always find the USA today equivalent on slashdot, but never anything more in depth, doesnt this site cater to nerds?