Printer Friendly
Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary
3,900,082,140 visitors served.
forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters
?
Dictionary/
thesaurus
Medical
dictionary
Legal
dictionary
Financial
dictionary
Acronyms
 
Idioms
Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
encyclopedia
?

carbon-14 dating

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.

carbon-14 dating

 or radiocarbon dating

Method 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.


carbon-14 dating [¦kär·bən ¦fȯr‚tēn ′dād·iŋ]
(nucleonics)
Determining the approximate age of organic material associated with archeological or fossil artifacts by measuring the rate of radiation of the carbon-14 isotope. Also known as radioactive carbon dating; radiocarbon dating.


Want to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit the webmaster's page for free fun content.
?Page tools
Printer friendly
Cite / link
Feedback
Mentioned in?  References in periodicals archive?   Encyclopedia browser?   Full browser?
No references found
 
Goodman to date the underwater layers using two methods: carbon-14 dating and OSL (optically stimulated luminescence).
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A Good Year for Dating As fortune would have it, a scientist named Willard Libby developed the carbon-14 dating method in 1949--just two years after the first scrolls were discovered.
Carbon-14 dating placed this musical instrument and other items in the cave to between 30,000 and 37,000 years ago.
 
 
 
Encyclopedia
?

Terms of Use | Privacy policy | Feedback | Advertise with Us | Copyright © 2012 Farlex, Inc.
Disclaimer
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.