Want this question answered?
Radioactive isotopes are used for radioactive dating. For example, you would use radioactive isotope Carbon-14 to date anything under 70,000 years that was once living. Radioactive isotopes decay from their parent isotope to daughter isotope at a constant rate (under any circumstances). The rate at which a parent isotope decays to its daughter isotope is considered one half life. Carbon-14 has a half life of 5730 years and its daughter isotope is Nitrogen-14. In order to determine how old something is you have to find out how much of the parent isotope is present in relation to the daughter.
You do not find the half life in carbon dating. The half lives of carbon isotopes are derived by studying their radioactive decay. For carbon dating, the isotope used is Carbon-14, which has a half life of 5,700 years.
Uranium dating is useful for long periods of time - e.g. 109 years. For fossils is recommended the method with 12C.
Carbon-14 isotope dating is only effective up to about 70,000 years. Dinosaur bones are at least 65 million years old. Elements with much longer half-lives are used to radiometrically date rock associated with dinosaur remains.
Radioisotopes are used by scientists to date rocks in a method called radiometric dating. The isotopes of an element are the atoms that have the same number of protons and electrons but different numbers of neutrons. When atoms of a radioactive isotope are included in the formation of a crystal, that crystal becomes the parent isotope. As the isotopes begin to decay, they become a daughter isotope. The convenient property of this phenomenon is that a certain parent isotope will ALWAYS decay to a certain daughter isotope. The rate of decay from parent to daughter isotope is called the half-life (time for half of the parent to become the daughter). Being familiar with and using isotopes such as Uranium-238, Uranium-235, and Carbon-14, scientists are able to calculate the age of a rock, fossil, etc. using the known half-life for each parent isotope.
carbon- 14
Carbon-14 is the isotope commonly used for dating wood and charcoal less than about 75,000 years old. This isotope is useful because plants take in carbon-14 while they are alive, and it decays at a known rate after the plant dies, allowing for accurate dating.
Uranium dating is recommended. Thorium dating (but with the isotope 230Th, not with the isotope 232Th) is recommended to minerals old of up to 500 000 years.
The primary dating isotope is carbon-14
Radioactive isotopes are used for radioactive dating. For example, you would use radioactive isotope Carbon-14 to date anything under 70,000 years that was once living. Radioactive isotopes decay from their parent isotope to daughter isotope at a constant rate (under any circumstances). The rate at which a parent isotope decays to its daughter isotope is considered one half life. Carbon-14 has a half life of 5730 years and its daughter isotope is Nitrogen-14. In order to determine how old something is you have to find out how much of the parent isotope is present in relation to the daughter.
Carbon 14 dating is most useful for dating fossils that are up to 50,000 years old. Beyond this time frame, the amount of C-14 left in the fossil is too minimal to provide accurate dating results.
The method of uranium-lead dating.
False. The half life of Carbon 14, which is a radioactive isotope and unstable, is only 5,730 years. Carbon 14 dating techniques are only useful up to 60,000 years and therefore are mainly used by archaeologists and not very much by geologists.
Just for knowing its origin
Carbon dating can be used to date organic materials, such as wood, bones, shells, and charcoal. It is particularly useful for determining the age of archaeological artifacts and fossils that are up to about 50,000 years old.
what are two radio active isotopes that are usful for dating rocks that are older than ten million years
You do not find the half life in carbon dating. The half lives of carbon isotopes are derived by studying their radioactive decay. For carbon dating, the isotope used is Carbon-14, which has a half life of 5,700 years.