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Earth's System: Earth’s History
Radiometric Dating
Description
Radiometric Dating
Radiometric dating is a scientific method used to determine the age of rocks, fossils, and ancient materials by measuring the decay of radioactive isotopes. Isotopes are atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons. Some isotopes are unstable and undergo radioa...
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Transcript
Imagine a plant absorbs carbon-12 and carbon-14 from the atmosphere during photosynthesis and is then eaten by another organism.
When it dies, it stops taking in carbon, and the existing carbon-14 gradually decays into nitrogen-14, while stable carbon-12 remains nearly constant.
Since the intake ratio of these isotopes is fixed, we...
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