An International Reference Material for Radiocarbon Dating

Abstract

In August 1980, the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) issued, in the form of oxalic acid, a new International Reference Material of contemporary 14C for use in radiocarbon dating laboratories. This reference material was to replace the 1975 oxalic-acid standard, supplies of which had been practically exhausted in 1978. The preparation of the new oxalic-acid standard was described in a preliminary report, as were, also, the results then available for the activity-concentration ratio of the new to the old standard obtained by a number of leading international laboratories. With the recent completion of the analysis of all results submitted by the participating laboratories, NBS plans to issue these recently calibrated samples of oxalic acid as an NBS Standard Reference Material. There is, however, no significant difference in the reported value of its activity concentration, relative to that of the 1957 standard, from that given provisionally in 1980. Subsequent to our report (Cavallo and Mann, 1980) a further measurement of relative activity concentration was reported by the Radiocarbon Laboratory of Peking University. Their value, and that also for Delta-13C, is insignificantly different from the average value of the results submitted by the eleven laboratories that participated in the international comparison organized by NBS.