Question

Dinosaur fossils are too old to be reliably dated using carbon-14, which has a half-life of about 5730 years. Suppose we had a 69 million year old dinosaur fossil. How much of the living dinosaur's 14C would be remaining today? (Round your answer to five decimal places.)

Answer 1

Carbon-14 Dating Dinosaur Bones

Explanation:

• The half-existence of carbon-14 is just 5,730 years, so carbon-14 dating is just effective on samples that are under 50,000 years of age
• Dinosaur bones are a great many years old a few fossils are billions of years old
• These incorporate radiometric dating of volcanic layers above or below the fossils or by correlations with comparable rocks and fossils of known ages
• Radiocarbon dating includes deciding the age of an old fossil by measuring its carbon-14 substance
• Carbon-14, or radiocarbon, is a normally happening radioactive isotope that structures when cosmic rays in the upper environment strike nitrogen particles, which at that point oxidize to become carbon dioxide