Earth Sciences 1022A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Radionuclide, Issf 10 Meter Air Rifle
27 Apr 2019
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Document Summary
To determine the absolute age of a rock body in years, we use the. Clocks provided by atoms of elements contained in minerals. Remember that atoms of a specific element will always have a specific number of protons (with an equal number of electrons to balance the charge). However, the number of neutrons can vary. This means that the atomic weight can vary. Isotopes are atoms of the same element with differing atomic weights. An isotope that spontaneously changes to another isotope (in some cases a different element if the number of protons changes), releasing energy in the process, is called a radioactive isotope (or radioisotope ). An original radioisotope (we will call this a parent isotope) is unstable! In most cases, a radioisotope will break into a daughter isotope plus subatomic particles, releasing energy in the process (although in some cases, a daughter isotope can be formed by the capture (gain) of electrons)).
