A Quality Assurance Protocol for Radiocarbon Dating Laboratories

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Abstract
The purpose of this Quality Assurance (QA) protocol is to summarize guidelines that have been accepted by the majority of directors of radiocarbon dating laboratories throughout the world, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Laboratories that carefully adhere to this protocol will produce consistently reliable data which will be comparable in accuracy to all other laboratories following this or any other equally rigorous quality assurance program. This statement does not, however, pertain to samples with 14C activities highly sensitive to method or degree of pretreatment, as pretreatment techniques vary among laboratories.