Definition of carbon dating in chemistry

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With the help of half-life values of a suitable radioisotope of an element, which is present in a rock, or in an artifact, the age of the rock and the artifact can be determined. As a tree grows, only the outermost tree ring exchanges carbon with its environment, so the age measured for a wood sample depends on where the sample is taken from. This means that after 5,730 years, only half of the initial 14 C will remain; a quarter will remain after 11,460 years; an eighth after 17,190 years; and so on.

In this way, an uninterrupted sequence of tree rings can be extended far into the past. Measurement of N, the number of 14 C atoms currently in the sample, allows the calculation of t, the age of the sample, using the equation above. After another 5730 years only a quarter remains.

Radioactive Dating - The counters work by detecting flashes of light caused by the beta particles emitted by 14 C as they interact with a fluorescing agent added to the benzene. Libby calculated the half-life of carbon-14 as 5568, a figure now known as the Libby half-life.