Carbon Dating
A Varanasi district court has issued notice regarding carbon-dating of the disputed structure known to have been found inside the premises of the Gyanvapi mosque.
What is Carbon Dating?
§Carbon
dating, also called radiocarbon dating is method of age determination that
depends upon the decay to nitrogen of radiocarbon (Carbon-14).
§This
method was developed by the American physicist Willard F. Libby about 1946.
§Carbon-14
is continually formed in nature by the interaction of neutrons with nitrogen-14
in the Earth’s atmosphere.
§The
neutrons required for this reaction are produced by cosmic rays interacting
with the atmosphere.
How it works?
§Radiocarbon
present in molecules of atmospheric carbon dioxide enters the biological carbon
cycle: it is absorbed from the air by green plants and then passed on to
animals through the food chain.
§Radiocarbon
decays slowly in a living organism, and the amount lost is continually
replenished as long as the organism takes in air or food.
§Once
the organism dies, however, it ceases to absorb carbon-14, so that the amount
of the radiocarbon in its tissues steadily decreases.
The half-life concepts:
§Carbon-14
has a half-life of 5,730 ± 40 years—i.e., half the amount of the radioisotope
present at any given time will undergo spontaneous disintegration during the
succeeding 5,730 years.
§Because
carbon-14 decays at this constant rate, an estimate of the date at which an
organism died can be made by measuring the amount of its residual radiocarbon.
Carbon Dating
A Varanasi district court has issued notice regarding carbon-dating of the disputed structure known to have been found inside the premises of the Gyanvapi mosque.
What is Carbon Dating?
§Carbon
dating, also called radiocarbon dating is method of age determination that
depends upon the decay to nitrogen of radiocarbon (Carbon-14).
§This
method was developed by the American physicist Willard F. Libby about 1946.
§Carbon-14
is continually formed in nature by the interaction of neutrons with nitrogen-14
in the Earth’s atmosphere.
§The
neutrons required for this reaction are produced by cosmic rays interacting
with the atmosphere.
How it works?
§Radiocarbon
present in molecules of atmospheric carbon dioxide enters the biological carbon
cycle: it is absorbed from the air by green plants and then passed on to
animals through the food chain.
§Radiocarbon
decays slowly in a living organism, and the amount lost is continually
replenished as long as the organism takes in air or food.
§Once
the organism dies, however, it ceases to absorb carbon-14, so that the amount
of the radiocarbon in its tissues steadily decreases.
The half-life concepts:
§Carbon-14
has a half-life of 5,730 ± 40 years—i.e., half the amount of the radioisotope
present at any given time will undergo spontaneous disintegration during the
succeeding 5,730 years.
§Because
carbon-14 decays at this constant rate, an estimate of the date at which an
organism died can be made by measuring the amount of its residual radiocarbon.