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A technique has been developed to measure 18O/16O ratios in milligram amounts of organic material. The organic material is pyrolyzed at 1250°C in the presence of diamonds (easily outgassed carbon source) as the reducing agent. The carbon monoxide formed is converted to carbon dioxide by a high voltage discharge, and the CO2 is analyzed on a mass spectrometer. The precision of the method is ±0.35 permil (1 sigma).
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Hardcastle et al. (1974) studied this question.
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