Monday, 17 February 2014

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Why Carbon dating over Radiometric dating to find out fossil record ?

The choice of isotope depends on various factors,for example if we want to find something that is in the order of billion of years of age then we can use Rubidium isotope whose half life is 49 billion years,so it depends on the kind of sample or fossil analysis we are doing.

Some methods if a new fossil is found then we can use the following
Geomagnetism,Potassium-argon dating, Argon-argon dating, Carbon-14 (or Radiocarbon), and Uranium series.


Carbon dating helps for those fossil which used carbon as one of their sources which was once living and presumed to be in equilibrium with the atmosphere, taking in carbon dioxide from the air.The advantage of carbon over radiometric dating is

(a).Very Small sample size needed so with very little sample we can characterize.

(b) takes less time than radiometric method

(c) higher precision than radiometric techniques.

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