RADIOACTIVE CARBON DATING
Lecture # 7 (week4)
by
Dr. Kashif Nadeem
Nuclear Physics
RADIOACTIVE CARBON DATING
•Radiocarbon dating (also
referred to as carbon dating or
carbon-14 dating) is a method
for determining the age of an
object containing organic
material by using the properties
of radiocarbon, a radioactive
isotope of carbon.
RADIOACTIVE CARBON DATING
• The method was developed in the
late 1940s at the University of
Chicago by Willard Libby, who
received the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry for his work in 1960.
• 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.
14
How does C form? Mostly from cosmic
rays.
• It is based on the fact that radiocarbon (14C) is constantly being created in the
atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen.
• The resulting 14C combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon
dioxide, which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis; animals then acquire 14C
by eating the plants.
• When the animal or plant 14 dies, it stops exchanging carbon with its environment,
14
and
thereafter the amount of C it contains begins to decrease as the C undergoes
radioactive decay.
• Measuring the amount of 14C in a sample from a dead plant or animal, such as a piece
of wood or a fragment of bone, provides information that can be used to calculate
when the animal or plant died.
14
• The
14
older a sample is, the less C there is to be detected, and because the half-life of
C (the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed) is about
5,730 years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to
around 50,000 years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally permit
accurate analysis of older samples.
Half Life of Carbon Dating
• Half-Life refers to the time taken
to lose half of radioactivity: the
time a radioactive substance
takes to lose half its radioactivity
through decay.
• The Half-Life of Carbon 14 is
5730 years. For example, if a
relatively large sample of Carbon
14 was left untouched for 5730
years, half of it would remain • 14
C Decay:
and the other half would decay. 14
C will eventually decay back into 14N
through this process;
14
C 14N + beta particle (β)
Examples of Carbon Dating Uses
• Carbon Dating can be extremely useful to archeologists when they
need to know the approximate date of a fossil or any other object.
• Some examples of when carbon dating is used: to find the ages of
trees, mummies, fossils, or any other organic material.
RADIOACTIVE CARBON DATING
Mathematical treatment
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Importance of radioactive carbon dating
• Living organisms can absorb radioactive carbon by respiration and
eating plants. When the organism dies, the atom of C14 are present at
the time of death begins to decay. By measuring the decay rate of the
C14, we can determine the age of the sample.
• For example, if the sample shows six decays, per minute per gm. Of
carbon, the decay rate has been reduced to ½ of its original value.
This means that the age of the sample is equal to one half life of the
sample.
Importance of radioactive carbon dating
• The method of radiocarbon dating is useful for organic materials that
are less than 10 half lives in age.
• In 10 half lives, the activity of a sample drops by a factor of 210. Now
the decay rate becomes too small to be detected accurately.
• In the atmosphere about 1 carbon atoms is radioactive isotope, the
activity of each gram (gm) of carbon is 12 decays per minute due to
the presence of radioactive C14.
Bibliography
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Thank you