Radioactive dating definition biology

Radiometric Age Dating

Covering a story? Visit our page for journalists or call Learn more here. Radiocarbon dating, or carbon dating, is a scientific method that can accurately determine the age of organic materials as old as approximately 60, years. First developed in the late s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby, the technique is based on the decay of the carbon isotope. The invention of radiocarbon dating elegantly merged chemistry and physics to develop a scientific method that can accurately determine the age of organic materials as old as approximately 60, years. It is based on the fact that living organisms—like trees, plants, people, and animals—absorb carbon into their tissue. When they die, the carbon starts to change into other atoms over time. Scientists can estimate how long the organism has been dead by counting the remaining carbon atoms. The technique was developed in the late s at the University of Chicago by chemistry professor Willard Libby, who would later receive the Nobel Prize for the work.

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This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Despite seeming like a relatively stable place, the Earth's surface has changed dramatically over the past 4. Mountains have been built and eroded, continents and oceans have moved great distances, and the Earth has fluctuated from being extremely cold and almost completely covered with ice to being very warm and ice-free. These changes typically occur so slowly that they are barely detectable over the span of a human life, yet even at this instant, the Earth's surface is moving and changing.

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Radiocarbon dating also referred to as carbon dating or carbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon , a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby. It is based on the fact that radiocarbon 14 C is constantly being created in the Earth's atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting 14 C combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide , which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis ; animals then acquire 14 C by eating the plants. When the animal or plant dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment, and thereafter the amount of 14 C it contains begins to decrease as the 14 C undergoes radioactive decay.

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How Does Carbon Dating Work

Cosmos » Earth. But how is it dated? What does radiometric dating actually mean? And what methods of dating can be used to date which kinds of items?

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