Santorini volcano explosion dates changed: Piece of olive tree found on Thirasia changes everything

Thema Newsroom ^ | October 22, 2018 | Kerry Kolasa-Sikiaridi/greekreporter

[KamperKen]

The article doesn’t state what the dating method was. The usual dating methods are estimates and not precise. I’m not sure they have the resolution to change the estimated date by the relatively small amount of several decades.

I’ve been to Santorini 3 times and it’s truly worth the visit. One can read Charle’s Pellegrino’s “Unearthing Atlantis” to get more background on Santorini and the volcanic explosion.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks KamperKen. The dating method used was radiocarbon dating, which ordinarily is a good one to use for the <50,000 year old organic material, but on Santorini the uptake of "dead carbon", C12, into biological systems growing in the soil there makes dated items appear older than they are.

C ratios: for example, plants on the Greek island of Santorini, near the volcano, have apparent ages of up to a thousand years.

wikipedia

search also for "Evidence for magmatic carbon bias in 14C dating of the Taupo and other major eruptions".

The olive-branch dating of the Santorini eruption March 2014

[SunkenCiv]

This discussion just gets crater and crater!

[null and void]

I’m having a blast...

[wildbill]

Assuming the dating of the olive tree fragment on the top of a hill above the caldera is correct, all it proves is that the tree may have survived beyond the generally accepted date of the eruption. By the way, the generally accepted date are supported by more than one artifact.

we know that olive trees are exceptionally hardy and live for a long time. Now if this artifact proved itself to antedate the accepted timeline via testing, that would perhaps move the date of the eruption back a few decades or more, but relying on one artifact for anything is unreliable in my opinion.

[SunkenCiv]

Exceptionally hardy doesn't mean it would survive the alleged supereruption.