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radiocarbon dating |
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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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| Carbon dating of the newly unearthed moss suggests that the landslide occurred about 8,100 years ago. To be fair, most of these discoveries have resulted from intensive archaeological work, from DNA and carbon dating techniques, and from new technologies like satellite imagery. This sample tested by carbon dating came from a single sample cut from the edge of the Shroud in a section where the cloth was dyed, evidently as part of some medieval repair to match the colour of the original cloth: "The combined evidence from chemical kinetics, analytical chemistry, cotton content, and pyrolysisms proves that the material from the radiocarbon area of the Shroud is significantly different from that of the main cloth. |
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