News tagged with radiocarbon
Geological evidence for past earthquakes in Tokyo region
In 1923, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated the Tokyo area, resulting in more than 100,000 deaths. About 200 years earlier, in 1703, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake struck the same region, causing more than 10,000 deaths.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 31, 2012 |
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New study may answer questions about enigmatic Little Ice Age
A new University of Colorado Boulder-led study appears to answer contentious questions about the onset and cause of Earth's Little Ice Age, a period of cooling temperatures that began after the Middle Ages ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 30, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (7) |
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Dog skull dates back 33,000 years
If you think a Chihuahua doesn't have much in common with a Rottweiler, you might be on to something.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jan 23, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (15) |
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Researchers unearth ancient bronze artifact in Alaska
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado Boulder recently discovered the first prehistoric bronze artifact made from a cast ever found in Alaska, a small, buckle-like object ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jan 05, 2012 |
5 / 5 (3) |
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The interplay of dancing electrons
Negative ions play an important role in everything from how our bodies function to the structure of the universe. Scientists from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now developed a new method that makes it possible ...
Nov 29, 2011 |
4 / 5 (4) |
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Industrialization weakens important carbon sink
Australian scientists have reconstructed the past six thousand years in estuary sedimentation records to look for changes in plant and algae abundance. Their findings, published in Global Change Biology, show a ...
Nov 29, 2011 |
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Ancient bronze artifact from East Asia unearthed at Alaska archaeology site
A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered the first prehistoric bronze artifact made from a cast ever found in Alaska, a small, buckle-like object found in an ancient Eskimo ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Nov 14, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (11) |
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Homo sapiens arrived in Europe earlier than previously believed
Members of our species (Homo sapiens) arrived in Europe several millennia earlier than previously thought. At this conclusion a team of researchers, led by the Department of Anthropology, University of Vie ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Nov 02, 2011 |
4.4 / 5 (10) |
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Rising CO2 levels at end of Ice Age not tied to Pacific Ocean
At the end of the last Ice Age, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose rapidly as the planet warmed; scientists have long hypothesized that the source was CO2 released from the deep ocean.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 03, 2011 |
5 / 5 (6) |
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Neanderthals ate shellfish 150,000 years ago: study
Neanderthal cavemen supped on shellfish on the Costa del Sol 150,000 years ago, punching a hole in the theory that modern humans alone ate brain-boosting seafood so long ago, a new study shows.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Sep 15, 2011 |
3.5 / 5 (4) |
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New computer dating technology changing the history of Britain
(PhysOrg.com) -- In a new study called Gathering Time published this month, archaeologists from English Heritage and Cardiff University have been able to create an accurate timeline of the first 700 years of ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jun 07, 2011 |
4.7 / 5 (3) |
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Researchers link oceanic land crab extinction to colonization of Hawaii
University of Florida researchers have described a new species of land crab that documents the first crab extinction during the human era.
May 16, 2011 |
4 / 5 (1) |
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Patterns of ancient croplands give insight into early Hawaiian society, research shows
A pattern of earthen berms, spread across a northern peninsula of the big island of Hawaii, is providing archeologists with clues to exactly how residents farmed in paradise long before Europeans arrived at the islands.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 16, 2011 |
4 / 5 (3) |
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Neanderthals died out earlier than originally believed
(PhysOrg.com) -- According to a newly released report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a newly refined method of radiocarbon dating has found that Neanderthals died off much earlier than o ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 10, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (14) |
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Oldest subarctic North American human remains found
(PhysOrg.com) -- A newly excavated archaeological site in Alaska contains the cremated remains of one of the earliest inhabitants of North America. These remains may provide rare insights into the burial ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Feb 24, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
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Carbon-14
Carbon-14, 14C, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon discovered on February 27, 1940, by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, though its existence had been suggested already in 1934 by Franz Kurie. Its nucleus contains 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method to date archaeological, geological, and hydrogeological samples.
There are three naturally occurring isotopes of carbon on Earth: 99% of the carbon is carbon-12, 1% is carbon-13, and carbon-14 occurs in trace amounts, e.g. making up as much as 1 part per trillion (0.0000000001%) of the carbon in the atmosphere. The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730±40 years. It decays into nitrogen-14 through beta decay. The activity of the modern radiocarbon standard is about 14 disintegrations per minute (dpm) per gram carbon.
The atomic mass of carbon-14 is about 14.003241 amu. The different isotopes of carbon do not differ appreciably in their chemical properties. This is used in chemical research in a technique called carbon labeling: some carbon-12 atoms of a given compound are replaced with carbon-14 atoms (or some carbon-13 atoms) in order to trace them along chemical reactions involving the given compound.
For more information about Carbon-14, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
