Radiometric or radioactive dating is a technique in which radioactive elements are used to determine the age of a rock or a fossil, etc. All radioactive elements decay, at a certain rate, into more stable daughter elements. If we can figure out the relative abundance of the parent element and the daughter element/s, we can determine how old the rock or fossil is. There are a number of radiometric techniques, such as radiocarbon dating, uranium-lead dating, etc. Depending on the suspected age of the sample, a different radiometric method may be used.
The USGS link provided here discusses how the age of the planet was calculated by radiometric dating of rocks. Similar dating of meteorites and lunar rocks has also been carried out. The age of planet and rocks is necessary to get a better understanding of our own planet.
The other link used a radiometric method based on Aluminum-26 and Beryllium-10 decay for archaeological studies of a cave system.
A number of research papers can also be found about fossil dating, which helps us understand more about the life at that particular instant in our history, etc.
Hope this helps.
No comments:
Post a Comment