ANT100Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Willard Libby, Radiometric Dating
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Looks at large scale reversals of north/south polarity. Used only occasionally to confirm other dating methods. Radiometric dating technique, the radioactive decay of isotopes. Isotopes are different forms of an element with different atomic weights, different number of protons and neutrons. Some isotopes are stable, some unstable: i. e. carbon 14 is unstable while carbon 12 is stable. Unstable ones can be used to determine the half life. Can date and object if you know: the original amount of the isotope, the amount remaining, the rate of radioactive decay. Half-life is the time for half of it to decay. Carbon is used because it is continually replaced during a lifetime and plants absorb and animals eat carbon 14. We know that the half-life of carbon 14 is 5730 years. We also know that as carbon 14 decays, nitrogen 14 is released.
