Radiokarbondatálás

Radiokarbondatálás, also known as carbon-14 dating, is a method used to determine the age of organic materials. It relies on the decay of carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon. Living organisms absorb carbon from their environment, including both stable carbon-12 and radioactive carbon-14. When an organism dies, it stops absorbing carbon, and the carbon-14 within its tissues begins to decay at a predictable rate. The half-life of carbon-14 is approximately 5,730 years, meaning that after this period, half of the original amount of carbon-14 will have decayed.

By measuring the ratio of remaining carbon-14 to stable carbon-12 in a sample, scientists can calculate how much time has passed since the organism died. This technique is effective for dating materials up to around 50,000 years old. Beyond this range, the amount of carbon-14 remaining is too small to be accurately measured. Radiokarbondatálás is widely used in archaeology, paleontology, and geology to date artifacts, fossils, and geological formations. The accuracy of the dating can be influenced by factors such as contamination of the sample and variations in atmospheric carbon-14 levels over time, which are often corrected for using calibration curves.