I do not know anyone affiliated with any university. I would like to have a rock dated, just to satisfy my own curiosity. Is there any options to have this done? I searched the internet with nothing coming up immediately.
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Is It Possible To Have A Rock Dated Radiometrically In An ‘over-the-counter’ Method?
Posted on August 27, 2010.
The only viable method would be to relative date it by examining the other rocks in the formation. If you got it in float, or disconnected from an outcrop, then you’re out of luck unless you can write up a proposal and get funding, or meet somebody at a conference.
First of all, remember that only *igneous* rocks can be absolutely dated. You can’t do it with sedimentary or metamorphic rocks. So you need a rock that came as a direct crystallization from a magma/lava.
But… no, not really, unless you can find some really hard-core local rock and mineral club, something like that. Even museums don’t carry equipment to measure parent-daughter particle ratios and spit out a date.
Sorry on this one. Your best bet for “over the counter” would be to try to find where your rock came from, and see if that rock unit has already been dated somewhere else. Let’s say you have a 100 mile long single lava flow. You have one end, a guy from NAU has a sample from the other end — he’s dated it as part of his own research. Even though they’re separated by 100 miles of crystallized lava, you’ll get the same date.
Or even go to your state geologic survey (whatever they call it where you are) and pull some maps (or buy, they’re cheap) and try to correlate it with something. If it’s a proper map, the rock unit will have a date.