I was just at Zion National park and on the tour bus they said that the water that drains out of the sandstone has been tested to be from 400 years to something like 4000 years old. How do they determine the age of the water since there is no carbon in it to carbon date it? Oh ya and everyone should visit Zion National Park, its in southern Utah, and is one of the most beautiful places I have been.|||Tritium, 3H, is a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen that makes up a part of nuclear fallout. Due to all the testing done over the last 60 years, there is a measurable amount of this element in all water, which can be used to date water. Any older than this, and you can still use carbon dating. When rain falls, it dissolves some carbon dioxide out of the air. This carbon dioxide remains dissolved in the water as it moves through the ground, and can be dated. This is not the most accurate way of dating, as the carbon exchanges with any carbon (mostly from limestone) in the rocks it passes through, making the water appear older.|||There's probably minerals in the water that can be dated (such as carbon). OR there's a way to tell how many cycles of evaporation it's been thought. But it'd say dating the minerals sounds most logical.

火车采集器