Implications for C-14 Dating of the Jenkins-Fischbach Effect and Possible Fluctuation of the Solar Fusion Rate

TL;DR

This paper explores how solar activity fluctuations, evidenced by C-14 calibration wiggles and the Jenkins-Fischbach effect, could impact radiocarbon dating accuracy and the perceived constancy of radioactive decay rates.

Contribution

It proposes that solar pulsations influence C-14 levels and decay rates, challenging the assumption of constant isotope half-lives and offering a new interpretation of calibration wiggles.

Findings

C-14 calibration wiggles may reflect solar pulsations.

Solar activity could cause variations in nuclear decay rates.

Implications for radiocarbon dating accuracy and isotope half-life constancy.

Abstract

It has long been known that the C-14 calibration curve, which relates the known age of tree rings to their apparent C-14 ages, includes a number of "wiggles" which clearly are not experimental errors or other random effects. A reasonable interpretation of these wiggles is that they indicate that the Sun's fusion "furnace" is pulsating, perhaps for reasons similar to that of the Cepheid variables, albeit under a very different regime of pressure and temperature. If this speculation is correct, we are seeing the heartbeat of the Sun-the C-14 calibration curve is the Sun's "neutrino-cardiogram." Elevated neutrino flux during a relatively brief period would have two effects: (1) a surge in C-14 fraction in the atmosphere, which would make biological samples that were alive during the surge appear to be "too young" (2) depletion of C-14 in the biotic matter already dead at the time of the surge; this is a consequence of the recently discovered Jenkins-Fischbach effect, which is an observed correlation between nuclear decay rates and solar activity or Earth-Sun distance. In addition, the precise value at any given time of the "half-life" of any unstable isotope-including C-14-must now be considered in doubt, since the Jenkins-Fischbach effect implies that we may no longer view the decay rate of an isotope as intrinsically governed and therefore a constant of Nature.