Carbon dating

Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating is a method used to determine the age of organic material. All living organisms consume carbon in some form either through photosynthesis or as food. In all living organisms the ratio of Carbon-14 and other carbon isotopes is the same at 1:10^12. When the organism dies it will stop consuming carbon, and the radioactive isotope of carbon, carbon-14 will decay with a half life of 5730 years.

To identify the amount of Carbon-14 in the dead organism, a small amount of it is burned and the amount of betaradiation emitted by the carbon dioxide gas is used to calculate the amount of Carbon-14 in the gas and consequently the organism. Then the amount of Carbon-14 present is compared to what is compared to a present day organism, and the ratio is used to calculate the amount of decay and subsequently the age.