Carbon Dating

Carbon dating is a variety of radioactive dating which is applicable only to matter

which was once living and presumed to be in equilibrium with the atmosphere,
taking in carbon dioxide from the air for photosynthesis.

Cosmic ray protons blast nuclei in the upper atmosphere, producing neutrons which
in turn bombard nitrogen, the major constituent of the atmosphere . This neutron
bombardment produces the radioactive isotope carbon-14. The radioactive carbon14 combines with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and is incorporated into the cycle
of living things.

The carbon-14 forms at a rate which appears to be constant, so that by measuring

the radioactive emissions from once-living matter and comparing its activity with
the equilibrium level of living things, a measurement of the time elapsed can be
made.

Index

HyperPhysics***** Nuclear
Go Back

Carbon Dating

R Nave

Presuming the rate of production of carbon-14 to be constant, the activity of a

sample can be directly compared to the equilibrium activity of living matter and the
age calculated. Various tests of reliability have confirmed the value of carbon data,
and many examples provide an interesting range of application.

Carbon-14 decays with a halflife of about 5730 years by the emission of an electron
of energy 0.016 MeV. This changes the atomic number of the nucleus to 7,
producing a nucleus of nitrogen-14. At equilibrium with the atmosphere, a gram of
carbon shows an activity of about 15 decays per minute.

The low activity of the carbon-14 limits age determinations to the order of 50,000
years by counting techniques. That can be extended to perhaps 100,000 years by
accelerator techniques for counting the carbon-14 concentration.

Origin of carbon-14
Index

Beta decay concepts

HyperPhysics***** Nuclear
Go Back

Carbon-14 Equilibrium Activity

R Nave

Since living organisms continually exchange carbon with the atmosphere in the form
of carbon dioxide, the ratio of C-14 to C-12 approaches that of the atmosphere.

From the known half-life of carbon-14 and the number of carbon atoms in a gram of
carbon, you can calculate the number of radioactive decays to be about 15 decays
per minute per gram of carbon in a living organism.

Radioactive carbon is being created by this process at the rate of about two atoms
per second for every square centimeter of the earth's surface." Levin

The rate of production of carbon-14 in the atmosphere seems to be fairly constant.

Carbon dating of ancient bristlecone pine trees of ages around 6000 years have
provided general corroboration of carbon dating and have provided some
corrections to the data.

Index

HyperPhysics***** Nuclear
Go Back

Reliability of Carbon Dating

Bristlecone Pine Trees

R Nave

From the dating of ancient bristlecone pine trees from the western U.S., a correction
curve for the carbon dating over the range back to 5000 BC has been developed.
Trees dated at 4000 BC show the maximum deviation of between 600 and 700 years
too young by carbon dating.

Glacier Measurements

Prior to carbon dating methods, the age of sediments deposited by the last ice age
was surmised to be about 25000 years. "Radiocarbon dates of a layer of peat
beneath the glacial sediments provided an age of only 11,400 years."

These examples are from The Earth Through Time, 2nd Ed. by Harold L. Levin

Krane points out that future carbon dating will not be so reliable because of changes
in the carbon isotopic mix. Fossil fuels have no carbon-14 content, and the burning
of those fuels over the past 100 years has diluted the carbon-14 content. On the
other hand, atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 1960s
increased the carbon-14 content of the atmosphere. Krane suggests that this might
have doubled the concentration compared to the carbon-14 from cosmic ray
production.

Index

Reference
Krane
Sec 6.7

HyperPhysics***** Nuclear

R Nave

Go Back

Accelerator Techniques for Carbon Dating

Accelerator techniques for carbon dating have extended its range back to about
100,000 years, compared to less than half that for direct counting techniques. One
can count atoms of different masses with a mass spectrometer, but that is
problematic for carbon dating because of the low concentration of carbon-14 and
the existence of nitrogen-14 and CH2 which have essentially the same mass.
Cyclotrons and tandem accelerators have both been used to fashion sensitive new
mass spectrometer analyses. The tandem accelerator has been effective in
removing the nitrogen-14 and CH2, and can be followed by a conventional mass
spectrometer to separate the C-12 and C-13. A sensitivity of 10-15 in the 14C/12C
ratio has been achieved. These techniques can be applied with a sample as small as
a milligram.

Index

Reference
Krane
Sec 20.2

HyperPhysics***** Nuclear
Go Back

R Nave

return to top

Carbon 14 Dating

Archaeologists use the exponential, radioactive decay of carbon 14 to estimate the

death dates of organic material. The stable form of carbon is carbon 12 and the
radioactive isotope carbon 14 decays over time into carbon 12 and other particles.
Carbon is naturally in all living organisms and is replenished in the tissues by eating
other organisms or by breathing air that contains carbon. At any particular time all
living organisms have approximately the same ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 14 in
their tissues. When an organism dies it ceases to replenish carbon in its tissues and
the decay of carbon 14 to carbon 12 changes the ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 14.
Experts can compare the ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 14 in dead material to the
ratio when the organism was alive to estimate the date of its death. Radiocarbon
dating can be used on samples of bone, cloth, wood and plant fibers.

The half-life of a radioactive isotope describes the amount of time that it takes half
of the isotope in a sample to decay. In the case of radiocarbon dating, the half-life
of carbon 14 is 5,730 years. This half life is a relatively small number, which means
that carbon 14 dating is not particularly helpful for very recent deaths and deaths
more than 50,000 years ago. After 5,730 years, the amount of carbon 14 left in the

body is half of the original amount. If the amount of carbon 14 is halved every
5,730 years, it will not take very long to reach an amount that is too small to
analyze. When finding the age of an organic organism we need to consider the halflife of carbon 14 as well as the rate of decay, which is 0.693.

For example, say a fossil is found that has 35% carbon 14 compared to the living
sample. How old is the fossil?
We can use a formula for carbon 14 dating to find the answer.

Where t1/2 is the half-life of the isotope carbon 14, t is the age of the fossil (or the
date of death) and ln() is the natural logarithm function. If the fossil has 35% of its
carbon 14 still, then we can substitute values into our equation.

So, the fossil is 8,680 years old, meaning the living organism died 8,680 years ago.

Like HowStuffWorks on Facebook!

HowStuffWorks
SCIENCE

Toggle navigation
How Carbon-14 Dating Works
BY MARSHALL BRAIN
Dating a Fossil

SCIENCE | GEOLOGIC PROCESSES

PREVNEXT

As soon as a living organism dies, it stops taking in new carbon. The ratio of carbon12 to carbon-14 at the moment of death is the same as every other living thing, but
the carbon-14 decays and is not replaced. The carbon-14 decays with its half-life of
5,700 years, while the amount of carbon-12 remains constant in the sample. By
looking at the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 in the sample and comparing it to the
ratio in a living organism, it is possible to determine the age of a formerly living
thing fairly precisely.

t = [ ln (Nf/No) / (-0.693) ] x t1/2

t = [ ln (Nf/No) / (-0.693) ] x t1/2

where ln is the natural logarithm, Nf/No is the percent of carbon-14 in the sample
compared to the amount in living tissue, and t1/2 is the half-life of carbon-14 (5,700
years).

So, if you had a fossil that had 10 percent carbon-14 compared to a living sample,
then that fossil would be:

t = [ ln (0.10) / (-0.693) ] x 5,700 years

t = [ (-2.303) / (-0.693) ] x 5,700 years

t = [ 3.323 ] x 5,700 years

t = 18,940 years old

Because the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,700 years, it is only reliable for dating objects
up to about 60,000 years old. However, the principle of carbon-14 dating applies to
other isotopes as well. Potassium-40 is another radioactive element naturally found
in your body and has a half-life of 1.3 billion years. Other useful radioisotopes for

radioactive dating include Uranium -235 (half-life = 704 million years), Uranium
-238 (half-life = 4.5 billion years), Thorium-232 (half-life = 14 billion years) and
Rubidium-87 (half-life = 49 billion years).

The use of various radioisotopes allows the dating of biological and geological
samples with a high degree of accuracy. However, radioisotope dating may not work
so well in the future. Anything that dies after the 1940s, when Nuclear bombs,
nuclear reactors and open-air nuclear tests started changing things, will be harder
to date precisely.

1234
Print | Citation & Date

RELATED CONTENT

The Ultimate La Brea Tar Pits Quiz

The Ultimate La Brea Tar Pits Quiz
What's the difference between archaeology and grave robbing?
What's the difference between archaeology and grave robbing?
Could we resurrect dinosaurs from fossil embryos?
Could we resurrect dinosaurs from fossil embryos?
How Diamonds Work
How Anthropology Works
The Ultimate Soft Tissue in Dinosaur Fossils Quiz
HowStuffWorks

About
Shows

Privacy
Ad Choices
Terms
Store
Advertising
Careers
Contact Us
Help
Copyright 2016 HowStuffWorks,
a division of InfoSpace LLC

The age of the Earth was a matter of speculation till very recent times and as such
there was divergence of opinions about the antiquity of the Earth. Until recently
geology relied extensively on the concept of the relative age of rocks.

It was only with the discovery of radioactivity that a new method giving an
approximate age, with comparatively less chances of errors, was found.

The determination of the age of the earth was attempted through two distinct
processes?

1. Indirect methods for ascertaining the earth's age, and

2. Radioactive methods for determining the actual age (Direct- method).

1. Indirect Methods

(a) Sedimentation-Clock

This takes into account the average annual rate of sedimentation and the thickness
of all strata deposited during the whole geological history.

Although this method is full of imperfections and variations from place to place, the
age of the Cambrian as determined by this and other sophisticated methods closely
approach each other.

According to this method, there is an average rate of deposition of 30 cm of

sediments in 755 years. As such the beginning of Cambrian sedimentation come to
about 510 million years.

(b) Salinity Clock

Joly and Clarke took into account the rate of accumulation of sodium in ocean-water
for determining the age of the Earth. The yearly rate of increase in the sodium
content (salinity) of sea water per unit volume can be determined from direct
observation and the content of sodium per unit volume of ocean water can also be
calculated.

Accordingly, the total amount of sodium in the ocean water can also be determined
from the total volume of ocean water.

This method has established that the Earth was formed about 100 million years ago.
But this method also suffered from a lot of imperfections, for e.g. the rate of supply
of sodium to ocean is not uniform throughout the geological history.

(c) Evolutionary Changes of Animals

The evolution of life has proceeded since the first forms of life appeared on earth.
As we know, the first formed animals were, unicellular which underwent various
phases of the evolutionary processes and multicellular organisms with more
complexities came into being. Man is, accordingly, considered to be the most
evolved one.

Evidence of the process of evolution, is found in the form of fossils, (preserved parts
of animals and impressions of plants and animals). Taking into account the
evolutionary developments biologists have estimated the age of the earth to be
about 1,000 million years.

(d) Rate of Cooling of the Earth

Kelvin estimated the age of the earth on the basis of his study of the history of
codling of the earth. Since temperature increases with depth, Kelvin assumed that
the earth began as a molten mass and has been cooling ever since i.e. the earth is
progressively losing heat.

Assuming the initial temperature of the earth to be 3900C, Lord Kelvin estimated
the age of the earth to be 100 million years and later on revised it to be between 20
to 400 million years.

This method of estimation is full of imperfections and one of the most important
consideration regarding the generation of radio-active heat was not taken into
account in this method.

(e) Varved Sediments

The term varve is applied to glacial-lake deposits containting rhythmically laminated

sediments of clay and silt. The silt and clay laminae occur alternate with each other
in a regular pattern. The couplet of beds is recognized as representing a year, like
the annual rings of a tree, and is called a varve.

It is presumed that these so called varved clays accumulated in lakes as a result of

thawing of glacier-ice; the fine bands having been deposited in winter and the
coarser ones, in summer.

A varve is usually about 10 mm in thickness and occasionally it ranges up to 300

mm. By counting the number of pairs of bands in a given section, the time represented by the section can be ascertained in years. Geologic time ranging from '0' to
10,000 years could be counted on this varve clock.

Apart from the above indirect methods, other attempts for estimating the age of the
earth were made on the basis of contraction of the earth's surface due to cooling,
by the rate of limestone deposition etc.

Even, on the basis of the concept of separation of the moon from the body of the
earth, Charles Darwin estimated the age of the earth to be 57 million years.

2. Radioactive Method

The discovery of radioactivity brought a new and apparently precise concept of

measuring the age of the earth. Radioactivity, as we know, consists in the
spontaneous disintegration of the nucleus of unstable elements and their
transformation into stable isotopes or new elements.

The disintegration is accompanied with the emission of alpha particles (i.e. helium
nuclei), beta particles (electrons) and energy in the form of gamma radiation. The
basic principle underlying all the radioactive methods is that "a radio-active parent
element decays into a stable daughter element at a constant rate".

The radioactive decay is usually expressed in terms of "half life period'. A half-life
period is the time required for one half of an original amount of a radioactive
element 10 disintegrate.

For geological purposes the unit of time is one year. The relationship between the
half life period and the rate of decay has been found out to be as:

T= 0 .693/ where T = half- life period ,X = rate of decay

Usually the 'half life period' is determined and accordingly it is equated to find out
the age of the earth.

The following are some of the common methods used for the purpose of
determining the age of earth:

(a) Uranium-lead method

Here two isotopes of uranium are used, U238 and U235. The chemical element
uranium, a heavy metal of atomic weight 238 spontaneously gives away X-rays and
atoms of the helium gas and is ultimately converted into the chemical elementradium of weight 236. This element too continues emitting helium atoms till it is
reduced to lead of atomic weight 206.

U238_____> Pb206+ 8He4

The half life of Uranium 238 is 4500 million years. One gram of uranium-238 will
produce 1/7600,000,000 gram of stable lead.

Similarly the second isotope U235 undergoes spontaneous disintegration and

ultimately gives rise to lead of atomic weight207.

U235--------- > Pb207 + 7He4

The half life of U-235 is 713 million years.

Potassium argon method Potassium, an element present in many minerals and

rocks, have three isotopes K3', K40 and K41. Only K40 is radioactive.

The radioactive transformation of K-40 consists in absorbing the electron by the

nucleus with the nearest to its electronic shell. Thus, a radiogenic stable isotope of
argon with exactly the same atomic weight (Ar40) is

(b) Thorium lead method

Thorium-232 through radioactive disintegration gives rise to lead 208. The half life
period, in this case is 13,900 million years.

Th232-------_>Pb208 + 6He4

(c) potassium argon method

Potassium, an element present in many minerals and rocks, have three isotopes
K39, K40 and K41. Only K40 is radioactive. The radioactive transformation of k40
consists in absorbing the electron by the nucleus with the nearest to its electronic
shell.

Thus, a radiogenic stable isotope of argon with exactly the same atomic weight (Ar
40) is formed. Only 12.4% of K40 through this process is converted to Ar-40. The
half life period, here is 11900 million years.

K40 ..>electron capture> Ar*40

About 87.6% of K40 through emission of beta particles get converted into Ca40
(calcium-40) with a half life period of 1470 million years. But this method does not
find much application in the determination of the age of earth.

It is mainly due to the fact that most common rock forming minerals already contain
so much of primary calcium (Ca40) that the comparatively minute amounts of
radiogenic Ca-40 cannot be determined.

(d) Rubidium Strontium method

This method is based on the radioactive decay of Rb87 and its transformation in to
Sr87. In minerals Rb-atoms are associated with its decay product as well as the
common Sr86. Natural rubidium is having two isotopes Rb85 and Rb87. Rb87 is
radioactive.

The ratio of Sr87 to Sr86 can be determined with great accuracy so also the ratio of
Rb87 to Sr87. It is therefore, this method is more reliable for metamorphic rocks.
The half life period is 50,000 million years.

Rb 87.> Beta particles >>> Sr87

(e) Radio Carbon Method

Cosmic rays, at the upper atmosphere, change nitrogen (N-14) to Carbon (C-14), an
isotope of carbon 'C12'. Once formed carbon-14 is quickly disseminated through the
atmosphere and reacts with oxygen to form C02 which is absorbed by all living
matter.

It has been observed that a constant level of this isotope (i.e C-14) is maintained by
all living organisms. At death, the organism stops absorbing the carbon-14 and the
carbon-14 present in the organism starts decreasing at a constant rate.

The half life period of C-14 is about 5,730 years. Since the half life of radioactive
carbon and its present content are known, it is possible to establish the time when

the organism died and, therefore, the age of the rock. This method is especially
useful for dating relatively recent materials up to 70,000 years.

CONCLUSION

The best means of estimating the age is provided by the Uranium- lead, Rubidiumstrontium and Potassium-argon methods.

On the basis of the data provided by the radioactive methods described above, the
age of the earth has been estimated to be of 4500 million years i,e 4.5 billion years.

Related Articles:
Brief note on water supply sources and resources in India
Brief Notes on Earth Rotation

Advertisements:

Fossils are among the most valuable sources of information about the Earth's
history. They tell us about the organisms that lived on Earth from the time of the
oldest fossils, about 3.8 billion years ago, to the present. By studying fossils we can
learn not only about the creatures and plants of the distant past, but how they
grew, what they ate, how they interacted, and many aspects of their behavior.

Fossils reveal many fascinating facts about the past, but they do a lot more. Do you
own anything made out of plastic? Plastic comes from oil, which also provides
gasoline, gas heat, and many other necessities of modern life. Fossils are one of the
most useful aids to finding oil, because oil tends to accumulate in the pores of
particular rock layers. Rocks of different ages contain different fossils. Study of
microscopic fossils brought up in chips of rock during drilling of wells has led to
many major oil and gas discoveries. Also, the oil itself is derived from fossil remains
of ancient organisms.

Study of fossils has led to important new understanding about how life evolved on
earth and about diseases, both ancient and modern. Fossils also help us understand
past climates, including ice ages and periods that were warmer than our present
climate. Knowledge from the study of fossils is helping geoscientists understand
global warming and its effects. By studying the catastrophic extinction of the
dinosaurs and many other life forms at the end of the Cretaceous Period,
geoscientists have gained insight into the evolutionary implications of impacts by
extraterrestrial objects. Investigating the physical and chemical characteristics of
fossil organisms that lived during times of drastic climatic change helps us
understand the implications of the changes we are making in our own environment.

Information about Earth history, practical help in finding energy resources, and
information that helps us anticipate the effects of possible environmental changes
are not the only benefits derived from fossils. Fossils are beautiful. Many thousands
of people collect, buy, sell, and trade fossils all over the world. Some jewelry and
furniture are made from fossils, and many stone buildings are made from stone that
is composed largely of fossils. Many people collect fossils simply because they are
beautiful, but others do so because fossils tell fascinating stories. Neither Barney
the Dinosaur nor Jurassic Park would exist if there were no fossils.