Re: C-14 and Petroleum

[Khalid Aleissa <kaleissa@kacst.edu.sa>]

A good way to discover synthetic food (i.e., food that is made of oil origin
compounds) is to measure 14-C content. The food is manufactured originaly from
oil compounds only If the 14-C content is withinn the detection limit.

"Cook, Lew (LCOO)" wrote:

> Most (all?) petroleum deposits will have zero C-14. They are millions of
> years old. The C-14, present in the atmosphere when the organisms that were
> the source for the oil were alive, has all decayed. Any C-14 present in
> petroleum would come from contamination with recent materials.
>
> I participated in an investigation of methane in the ground near a garbage
> dump -er, landfill - which was near a gas field. The gas field was ruled out
> as the source of the methane as the methane in the ground had essentially
> modern levels of C-14. Note, however, that in the case of near surface
> buried oil products, the C-14 will be deficient in the methane produced by
> the biodegradation of the oil.
>
> Lew
> 510 242-7040
> lcoo@chevron.com
>
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--
Khalid Aleissa
e-mail: kaleissa@kacst.edu.sa


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