RADIOMETRIC DATING

INTRODUCTION

WHAT IS IT?

• a way to data geological or archeological specimens by finding the relative proportions of particular radioactive isotopes in a sample.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

• They find it by finding the comparison between the naturally occurring radioactive isotope and its decay products, using decay rates

EXAMPLES

• Marvin Lubenow provided an example of Radiometric dating with the "KBS tuff" near Lake Turkana in Africa the bed was dated successfully by careful sample preparation that eliminated the detrital minerals. It contained a mixture of minerals from a volcanic eruption and detrital mineral grains eroded from other, older rocks.

EXAMPLES

• A bad example is "John Woodmorappe's" paper on radiometric dating (1979), which has a "compilation" approach, and gives only superficial treatment to the individual dates. Among other problems documented in an FAQ by Steven Schimmrich, many of Woodmorappe's examples neglect the geological complexities that are expected to cause problems for some radiometrically-dated samples.

EXAMPLES

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CITATIONS