Biology | What Is Radiocarbondating?
What is radiocarbondating?
Radiocarbon dating is a process for determining the age of a prehistoric object by measuring its radiocarbon content. The technique was developed by an American chemist, Willard F. Libby (1908-1980), in the late 1940s. Radiocarbon dating involves the analysis of a radioactive carbon isotope, carbon 14 (also called radiocarbon), which is produced in small amounts continuously in the atmosphere by cosmic rays (invisible, high-energy particles that bombard Earth from space). Radiocarbon, like normal carbon, becomes absorbed into green plants through photosynthesis and into animals when they eat the green plants.
After an animal or plant dies, it no longer absorbs radiocarbon and the radiocarbon present in the organism begins to decay (break down by releasing atomic particles) at an exact and uniform rate. Its half-life (the time it takes a sample to lose half its radioactivity) of 5,730 years makes...
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