carbon-14 dating
Isotope age determination
Carbon-14 dating is a method for determining the age of organic material by measuring how much of its radioactive carbon-14 has decayed.
Living things absorb carbon-14 from the atmosphere; after death, it decays at a known rate.
Scientists can date specimens up to about 50,000 years old: Carbon-14 dating placed the scrolls in the first century BCE.
Also called radiocarbon dating.
- isotopeElemental variant by mass
- radioactive decayUnstable atoms releasing energy
- contaminationIntroduction of impurities
- mass spectrometryMeasures ionic weight ratios
- archaeologyStudy of physical remnants
anthropology · half-life · paleontology · Ice Age · time capsule · beta decay · decay rate · geochemistry · tree rings · nuclear physics · organic matter · atomic nucleus · climatology · radiocarbon · laboratory analysis · ancient artifacts · Dead Sea Scrolls · bone fragments
- archaeologyexcavation, dig site, archaeologist, dig, archaeological digs
- Dating Methodsgeochronology, thermoluminescence, luminescence, tephrochronology
- isotope methodsradioisotopes, radiotracers, radioactive tracers, tritium, radiocarbon
carbon, dating, carbons, carbonic, carbonize, carbonized, carbonization, carbonate, carbonated