Carbon-14 terrestrial ages and weathering of 27 meteorites from the southern high plains and adjacent areas (USA)

Abstract We report on a series of 27 ¹⁴C terrestrial ages of meteorites from four states in the central and southwestern USA. These results were compared to the earlier work of Boeckl (1972). Our results showed that the weathering rate for destruction of meteorites is lower than suggested by Boeckl (1972). We estimated a “half-life” for removal of meteorites of about 10 to 15 ka, similar to that derived for Roosevelt County meteorites. We also studied the weathering of these meteorites compared to terrestrial age. Only a weak correlation was observed, and for these meteorites the degree of weathering can only be taken as a weak indicator of terrestrial residence time. We also measured the δ ¹³C and ¹⁴C and amount of weathering-product carbonates which show some interesting variations with the length of time the meteorites have been exposed to weathering.