Carbon-14 dating (¹⁴C)

• Technique developed by Willard F. Libby for estimating the age of a sample.
• Carbon-14 decays by electron emission with a half-life of 5730 years.

This process is based upon the following assumptions:

• Carbon-14 is produced in the atmosphere according to the following reaction at a fairly constant rate:

• Carbon atoms move around among the atmosphere, oceans, and living organisms at a rate faster than they decay, so that the concentration of ¹⁴C is constant in all living things.
• When an organism dies, it no longer picks up ¹⁴C.
• One can estimate how long an organism has been dead by comparing the activity of a sample with the activity of living tissue.

Half-life - The length of time it takes for exactly half of the nuclei of a radioactive sample to decay.

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