Carbon dating, also known as radiocarbon dating, is a technique for dating organic material such as bone, hair, wood, charcoal, soil, plant fibres and more. In other words, these technique can be used to determine the age of such matter. In order to gain a full comprehension of what carbon dating is, you must first gain a better comprehension of carbon and one of its isotopes, referred to as radiocarbon.

What is carbon?

Carbon is the sixth element on the periodic table. Elements are substances made up of one type of atom and the periodic table lists these elements in order of atomic number. The atomic number of an element is determined by the number of protons in the element’s atom. The number of electrons are usually equivalent to the number of protons in order to balance out the charge of an atom. For instance, hydrogen has the atomic number of 1 being it that its atoms contain one proton (and one electron usually); helium has the atomic number of 2 being that its atoms contain two protons (and two electrons usually). Our element of interest, carbon, has an atomic number of six, being that it contains six protons (and thus six electrons). You also have isotopes, which are variants of an element. Different isotopes are determined by a varying number of neutrons. For instance, the Carbon-12’s atoms contain six protons and six neutrons; Carbon-13’s atoms contain six protons and seven neutrons; and Carbon-14’s atoms contains six protons and eight neutrons. Carbon-14 is also referred to as radiocarbon.

What is radiocarbon?

Radiocarbon, as stated above, is the carbon-14 isotope of Carbon. It is referred to as radiocarbon due to its unstable and radioactive nucleus. A radioactive nucleus is a result of an imbalance of an atom’s nucleus which thus results in the release of energy in the form of alpha, beta and gamma radiation. These isotopes which release radiation in order attempt to stabilise the nucleus are referred to as radioisotopes and the process of releasing radiation is referred to as radioactive decay. A radioactive decay is often measured using its half-life. A half-life is the time it takes a radioactive sample to reduce its self to half its current quantity. This is infinite because of the nature of numbers – you can always half any given sample, then half the result without ever reaching zero. Carbon-14 has a half-life of approximately 5,700 years.

How is radiocarbon formed?

Radiocarbon is formed when cosmic radiation from outer-space collides with our atmosphere. More specifically, when the radiation collides with the nitrogen in the earth’s atmosphere, the result, among other phenomena, is carbon-14. Carbon-14 when combined with oxygen forms carbon dioxide. Through the process of photosynthesis, plants intake carbon dioxide and convert it into forms of energy. Every organism on the planet, whether herbivore or carnivore, consume plants, whether directly or indirectly because even a carnivore will consume an animal that consumes plants (or perhaps consume an animal, that consumes another animal that consumes plants). In other words, plants are the first point in the food chain, which means that all organisms also consume the carbon-14 in plants. So as the carbon-14 inside an organism is decaying, it is constantly being replaced. Then there’s the fact that organisms release carbon dioxide into the air through a process called respiration, which the plants then consume and the cycle continues. This phenomena results in every single living organism on the planet maintaining a constant ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 (being we are carbon based lifeforms), which is in fact the same as the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the very earth’s atmosphere itself.

What is carbon dating?

When a organism is decease, the process of replenishing carbon-14 no longer takes place. This means due to its radioactivity, the quantity levels or carbon-14 will continue to reduce eternally. Scientist are then able to measure the quantity of carbon-14 in the organic material in respect to its ratio with carbon-12