Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating

1. Radiocarbon dating (carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
2. Radiocarbon (14C) is constantly created in the Earth’s atmosphere due to the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen.
3. The 14C thus produced combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide, and gets incorporated into plants by photosynthesis and animals acquire it by eating the plants.
4. On death of plants/animals, the carbon exchange with its environment, and thereafter the amount of 14C it contains begins to decrease as the 14C undergoes radioactive decay. 
5. Measuring the proportion of 14C in a sample from a dead plant or animal at any point of time can reveal when the animal or plant died.
6. oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process as the half-life of 14
   C (the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed) is about 5,730 years.