Radiocarbon dating, right? How does that work, and how can we ensure its accuracy?
In: Planetary Science
Everything living absorbs carbon, including a radioactive version called Carbon-14. When something dies, that C-14 starts to decay at a predictable rate. So, by measuring how much C-14 is left in something like a bone or a piece of wood, we can figure out roughly how long ago it died. It’s only good for organic materials, though, and only up to about 50,000 years old. Beyond that, the C-14 levels are too low to measure accurately. We cross-reference with other dating methods like thermoluminescence, which measures trapped electrons in things like pottery, or potassium-argon dating for really old volcanic rock. And we look at the surrounding context, too – if we find something in a layer of dirt we know is from a certain period, that helps narrow things down. It’s like a detective piecing together clues, not just one magic bullet.
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