Today’s topic is a semi-technical topic – Carbon 14 Dating. Today’s program is part 2 of the Carbon 14 discussion – for Part 1 Click Here. Scientists use a technique called Radiometric Dating to estimate the age of rocks and fossils. Carbon 14 is not used to date rocks as millions of years old but is generally used date once living things or Organic matter.
Review:
1. Carbon 14 is an atom that has 6 protons and 8 Neutrons. All Carbon atoms have 6 protons.
3. Carbon 14 is found in once living things and not in most rocks. Therefore Carbon 14 can only be used to date once living things not rocks.
4. Carbon 14 is Unstable. It radioactively decays into Nitrogen 14.
5. We measure how long it takes to decay in terms of half-lifes and we estimate the half-life of Carbon 14 to be 5730 years.
6. The Maximum dating range we could date anything using Carbon 14 is about 80,000 years.
Now in today’s episode Mike is talking about how the dating process actual works and how reliable is the dating method.
