On the Atlantic coast of the U. In Morocco, paleontologists excavated the fossils of a dinosaur that roamed Earth million years ago. How did the researchers determine these ages? When examining remnants from the past, experts use radiometric dating, a versatile technique that involves counting radioactive atoms of certain elements that are still present in a sample. The particular elements studied, as well as the details of the process, depend on the approximate age of the object that scientists hope to date. For human or animal remains and artifacts from the past 50, years or so, researchers look at levels of carbon 14 in the sample.

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Spontaneous fission - Wikipedia
Home earth Earth History Geologist Radioactive. Read about How do we know the Age of the Earth? Radiometric dating using the naturally-occurring radioactive elements is simple in concept even though technically complex. If we know the number of radioactive parent atoms present when a rock formed and the number present now, we can calculate the age of the rock using the decay constant. The number of parent atoms originally present is simply the number present now plus the number of daughter atoms formed by the decay, both of which are quantities that can be measured.


History of geology
Vocabulary : daughter atom, decay, Geiger counter, half-life, isotope, neutron, radiation, radioactive, radiometric dating. Like an unpopped kernel in the microwave, a radioactive atom can change at any time. This process, called decay , causes the radioactive atom to change into a stable daughter atom.



By Beth Geiger. June 13, at am. Imagine the nearly unimaginable: 4.