Could ancient earthquake explain Shroud of Turin?

[struggle4progress]

24. My gut reactions to the Carpinteri claims

Carpinteri apparently believes that compression or fracture of certain rocks can produce nuclear reactions. In particular, with respect to the Shroud of Turin, he apparently claims earthquakes can produce neutron emissions from some rocks and that these earthquake-related neutron fluxes are of such magnitude as would affect the isotopic compositions in ground-level cloth (such as the Shroud of Turin)

One should first note that current experience suggests any effect of the electron shell of an atom on nuclear reactions in the atomic nucleus is very weak -- so even if Carpinteri were right that some nuclear reaction rates might be briefly accelerated in certain minerals under earthquake conditions, one should not expect a large effect. Moreover, earthquakes are subterranean, and the majority of any produced neutrons would be absorbed or reflected by dense surrounding rock before reaching the surface. Finally, a few layers of a low density material like cloth is not likely to capture a high percentage of a given neutron flux

So a neutron flux in some region of Italy, sufficient to change the radiocarbon date of the Shroud, would necessarily have been large at ground level and would have been enormous at the subterranean source. It should have left isotopic anomolies in other local materials, and the method of producing such neutron fluxes should be easily detectable in the laboratory. But for the most part, no one seems to have reproduced any such enormous fluxes by fracturing rock; and regional radiocarbon dating doesn't appear to be problematic

Alberto Carpinteri .. was director of the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica (INRiM) in Turin ... In 2013 INRiM was set in temporary receivership and Carpinteri dismissed after the resignation of two-thirds of the board of directors in objection of Carpinteri's support in the purported theory of piezonuclear fission.