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radiocarbon dating |
Also found in: Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.02 sec. |
carbon-14 datingor radiocarbon datingMethod of determining the age of once-living material, developed by U.S. physicist Willard Libby in 1947. It depends on the decay of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 (radiocarbon) to nitrogen. All living plants and animals continually take in carbon: green plants absorb it in the form of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and it is passed to animals through the food chain. Some of this carbon is radioactive carbon-14, which slowly decays to the stable isotope nitrogen-14. When an organism dies it stops taking in carbon, so the amount of carbon-14 in its tissues steadily decreases. Because carbon-14 decays at a constant rate, the time since an organism died can be estimated by measuring the amount of radiocarbon in its remains. The method is a useful technique for dating fossils and archaeological specimens from 500 to 50,000 years old and is widely used by geologists, anthropologists, and archaeologists. radiocarbon dating a technique for determining the age of organic materials, such as wood, based on their content of the radioisotope 14C acquired from the atmosphere when they formed part of a living plant. The 14C decays to the nitrogen isotope 14N with a half-life of 5730 years. Measurement of the amount of radioactive carbon remaining in the material thus gives an estimate of its age radiocarbon dating [¦rad·ē·ō′kär·bən ′dād·iŋ] (nucleonics) How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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| In fact, the only recent argument against the authenticity of the Shroud was that deriving: from radio-carbon dating performed in 1988, which put the origin of the Shroud in the Middle Ages. The measure, couched as a ban on "errors," would have denied state and local funds to any public school district, zoo or museum that presented textbook material about evolution, radio-carbon dating or fossils. Some of the findings will be analyzed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and radio-carbon dating methods performed at other universities, she said. |
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