[Wurlitzer]

Honest question here: Is it possible to used carbon dating on oil?

If it were found to all be millions of years old then yes there is a finite limit based upon how much we are bringing to the surface.

If it were found to be much younger then a case could be made that it is being produced now and then we would need to know how much per decade vs how much we are extracting.

[MrB]

Carbon dating won’t work past 20k years, and I’m being generous.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Carbon dating is a tough call out to where oil and coal were formed. Best estimates for Midwestern (Illinois Basin) coal is 260 million years ago. Powder River Basin sub-bituminous is younger.

[thackney]

Carbon dating has been used to show the carbon atoms in the petroleum to be so old that it exceeds the ability to give an actual date. If the oil was formed in the last 10,000 years it could be dated.