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We basically already are. I'm not 100% certain on this, but all porcelain/ceramic pieces should be dateable through Potassium-Argon and Argon-Argon methods. Y
by jofer 13y ago
We basically already are.
I'm not 100% certain on this, but all porcelain/ceramic pieces should be dateable through Potassium-Argon and Argon-Argon methods.
You'll never see it used in archeology as it's only useful for fairly old (greater than a few hundred thousand years) samples, but Potassium-Argon (and the complimentary Argon-Argon) is a _very_ common dating method for geologic samples.
Porcelain is mostly made from kaolinite, but usually includes quite a bit of various feldspars as well. I think (?) the process of making ceramics should get the feldspars involved up above the Curie temperature, if not entirely melting and re-crystallizing them.
If so, you should be able to date porcelain/ceramics in the far, far distant future.