“Measuring the age of carbon that came from nuclear weapons tests in the 20th century could help conservationists detect illegal ivory and pinpoint poaching hotspots, according to new research.

Despite the 1989 ban on the ivory trade, the illegal poaching and slaughter of elephants is still rife in many areas of Africa, leading Barack Obama on Monday to announce $10m to train police officers and park rangers to combat the illegal trade.

The new application of a technique known as “bomb-curve 14C dating” is applied to the carbon contained in both collagen and the mineral apatite within ivory to provide an age of death of the animal from which the ivory originated.

Such dating relies on the dramatic increase and subsequent decline of 14C – an isotope of the naturally occurring element carbon that radioactively decays with time – in the atmosphere since the 1950’s related to the testing of nuclear weapons during the 1950-1960’s. Much like the growth rings used to date the age of trees, elephant tusks also grow in rings recording the composition of carbon in the atmosphere at the time the animal was alive and consuming plants that had absorbed atmospheric carbon during growth”.
Source: The Guardian

Author: Natalie Starkey

To read full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jul/02/carbon-ivory-combat-poaching