How do we know radiometric dating works?
I understand the mechanisms, ive watched a lot of videos about it. My only concern is, how do we know how much of the parent element was orignially in the sample when it was first composed, or that it wasnt just a rock made up of a lot of the daughter element? Its probably dumb. But im confused
In: Earth Science
The daughter isotopes chosen for analysis in radiometric dating only naturally exist as decay products of the parent, so wouldn’t concentrate enough to form a whole rock made of the daughter. It would be strange to find a sample of pure daughter products, I doubt it could happen without human intervention.
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