Famous carbon dating examples

Carbon-14 is radioactive with a half-life of about 5700 years, but as C-14 atoms decay, new ones are created.The amount of C-14 in the atmosphere settles into an equilibrium where creation of new atoms is equal to the decay of old atoms.Writing lucidly and knowledgeably, she explains the uses and quirks of radiocarbon results, illustrating them with such famous examples as Stonehenge and the Shroud of Turin.

Known as radiocarbon dating, this method provides objective age estimates for carbon-based objects that originated from living organisms.

The “radiocarbon revolution” made possible by Libby’s discovery greatly benefitted the fields of archaeology and geology by allowing practitioners to develop more precise historical chronologies across geography and cultures.

Many different techniques can be used to measure bone fluoride content, but measurement by ion selective electrode is the easiest and simplest method available today.

Radiocarbon Dating inaugurates a new series, "Interpreting the Past," published jointly by the British Museum and the University of California Press.

The sample will give us about a dozen counts an hour.

Twenty half-lives, or 114,000 years, will reduce the original abundance of C-14 by about a million.

Willard Libby (1908–1980), a professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago, began the research that led him to radiocarbon dating in 1945.

He was inspired by physicist Serge Korff (1906–1989) of New York University, who in 1939 discovered that neutrons were produced during the bombardment of the atmosphere by cosmic rays.

A January 20, 2005 article in the scholarly, peer-reviewed scientific journal Thermochimica Acta (Volume 425, pages 189-194, by Raymond N.