Carbon 14 dating essay

Bronowski, J. (2012). Science. In The Norton reader: An anthology of nonfiction (13th ed., pp. 886-889). New York: W.W. Norton

Radiometric dating is a technique that utilizes unstable isotopes of natural elements. Because these unstable isotopes eventually decay at a constant and singular rate despite any environmental changes such as temperature or moisture changes. The unit used as measurement is a half-life which is the amount of time it takes 50% of the original isotope to decay into the next isotope or daughter isotope. Basically the amount of half-lives is multiplied by the length of the half-life to estimate the age of the object being tested. Every element used has a different half-life and that makes each useful for measuring certain types of material. Some have longer a half-life and thus a longer effective dating range. Potassium-argon dating is useful for dating material that is extremely old. This method is used by geologists to replace relative ages based on rock formation with absolute ages. The dates found from the radiometric technique are accurate because the sources, the individual radioactive isotopes, are unchanging and unaffected by environmental factors. This means that the radiometric data will always be precise unlike relative dating which relies on the theory of uniformitarianism, the theory that geological history is made up of endless and uniform

Radiometric dating is still being used today. Modern uranium-lead radioactive dating of meteorites and earth materials gives us today's estimate that the earth is about 4.5 billion years

Encyclopaedia Britannica also states that it is “proved to be a versatile technique of dating fossils and archaeological specimens from 500 to 50,000 years old” (1998). This method of age determination is dependent upon the decay of nitrogen and radiocarbon (Carbon-14) (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011). Carbon-14 is continually formed in nature by the interaction of neutrons with nitrogen-14 in the Earth’s atmosphere (Encyclopaediea Britannica, 1998; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2011) and all living things exchange the gas carbon-14 with the atmosphere surrounding them. The amount of carbon-14 exchanged into the living organism is perfectly balanced with its surroundings, but when an organism dies, they stop taking in the gas and that equilibrium is damaged. Because Carbon-14 slowly decays at a known rate called its “half-life” in a dead organism, scientists can figure out how long ago it had stopped exchanging carbon with its atmosphere. Thus, its age can be determined by measuring the amount of Carbon-14 in a sample (Hirst, 2017; Opinions of Radiocarbon Dating, 2017; Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit Research Laboratory for Archaeology, n.d.; Earthsky, 2017; Cram, 1993). With the utilisation of Radiocarbon Dating, scientists have been able to discover that Lindow

2. Given that the half-life of the radioisotope carbon-14 is 5730 years, how useful do you think this isotope would be for dating bones that are over a million years old?

2) Carbon -14 would not be effective at dating bones that are millions of years old. Carbon -14 is effective at dating to a maximum of 40 000 to 50 000 years old. The isotope decays over time and would not be present on bones that are millions of years old.

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Scientist are able to use modern instruments to accurately date these rocks by measuring radioactive decay. These rocks are approximently 1.7 billion years old, less than half the age of the earth. These black rocks tell scientist not only how old they date back but

It has been discovered that more than forty percent of Americans deny that humans evolved from other animals and think that the earth is only thousands of years old instead of millions of years old. These kind of people are known as the “history deniers” or the “ 40-percenters” throughout this book. Many preachers agree that evolution is true and that Adam and Eve are just a ‘symbolic’ meaning will never actually mention that in a sermon. The purpose of this book is to reach those history-deniers and those who know

Elizabeth Kolbert is an award winning author known for her commentary on environmentalism. Much of her career has been focused on an analysis of the history of environmental change, as well as discussing modern day environmental trends. Her latest novel, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History focuses on placing what she terms “The Anthropocene Extinction” in the context of life’s history. Through an analysis of the Big 5 extinctions as well as of more isolated extinctions, Kolbert communicates that the definition of extinctions has evolved with human understanding. In the past, renowned scientists have wavered between a catastrophist and uniformitarian stance. The catastrophist stance emerged with Georges Cuvier, a French zoologist who

L. Vardiman, A.A. Snelling and E.F. Chaffin (Eds.), Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, Institute for Creation Research, Santee, California, and Creation Research Society, St. Joseph, Missouri, 2000.

In Chapter 11 “Deciphering Earth’s History” of the book “Earth Science” by Tarbuck and Lutgens, it explains to the audience how scientists have come up with new ways to figure out the age of Earth and even mountains, rivers and fossils. Some ideas such as rock layers, fossils, and radioactivity are some of the ways scientists use to figure out the exact date the earth was created and even find out how old some parts of the world are. Finding out the exact times many mountains, rivers, fossils and humans actually existed can help us put them down on the Geologic Time Scale and also answer questions such as, “Did humans and Dinosaurs Ever

Before the discovery of radiometric methods to determine the age of the Earth, the first few attempts were off by thousands of millions

Fluorine dating is a method is centered on the principle that the element fluorine from the soil is absorbed by fossil bones. The elements fluorine is buried in the soil and therefore the lengthier they are buried, the bones will have more fluorine. However, this method requires several samples taken from an immediate location.

Libby developed the method of radiocarbon dating though his observation of how cosmic rays create radiocarbon. From outer space cosmic rays infiltrate earth’s atmosphere. In the upper atmosphere, these rays hit nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the air. (Renfrew, 1973). When the neutrons of these high–energy particles (mostly protons) hit nitrogen atoms, Carbon 14 (C-14) is created. The nitrogen atom (atomic number 7) has an atomic mass of 14 (with 7 protons and 7 neutrons). When the nucleus of the nitrogen is hit by the cosmic ray’s neutrons, the atomic number of the atom decreases by one. The make-up of its atomic mass changes, a proton is emitted and the neutrons are increased by one; therefore, the atomic mass number stays the same. Because the atomic number has changed, a new element, carbon 14, with atomic number 6, has an atomic mass of 14 (with 6 protons and 8 neutrons). (Bowman, 1990) The reaction is 14N + n = 14c + p (where n is a