Radiocarbon dating - Absolute dating Flashcards
What is radiocarbon dating also referred to as?
Carbon -14 dating.
What is radiocarbon dating?
Is based on the decay of radioactive isotope carbon -14 to nitrogen.
What are the 3 limitations of radiocarbon dating?
- It can only date fossils up to 60,000 years.
- Cannot be used for dating rocks.
- The ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 varies in the atmosphere. Thus, radiocarbon must be treated with a certain degree of caution.
What is radiocarbon dating used to date for?
Dating materials that contain organic material.
What does carbon -14 decay to?
Nitrogen.
Where is carbon -14 produced?
It is produced in the upper atmosphere by the action of cosmic radiation on nitrogen.
What is the ratio of carbon-14 atoms in plants?
One atom of every million million (10^12) of carbon atoms in plants is a carbon-14 atom.
What happens if an animal eats a plant containing carbon-14?
Carbon-14 in the plant becomes a part of the animal’s tissues. If an animal dies, then carbon-14 intake stops but the carbon-14 already in the tissues of the organisms continues to decay at a fixed rate.
How can the age of an artifact or fossil be determined using radiocarbon dating?
The ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 can be used to determine the age of the sample.
What is the half-life of carbon-14?
5730 years.
How can radiocarbon dating be verified?
Through the use of dendrochronology.
What is accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating (AMS)?
A technique used to give radiocarbon dates for very small samples of material. This technique involves breaking the sample up into its constituent atoms so that the number of atoms of each isotpe of carbon can be counted.
What can AMS dating be used for?
Date cave paintings from tiny pigment samples.
