You are given a worked wooden item from an archaeological dig believed to date to during the last glaciation. As such, the artifact would be another piece of evidence in favor of the hypothesis that North America was settled prior to the end of the last glaciation. You analyse the artifact and find that it has a specific activity of 2.2 dpm/g. How old is the artifact?
2007-08-31 13:30:27 · 2 answers · asked by Reasons 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Chemistry
I thing that we have to know the half-life of the artifact
2007-08-31 23:11:07 · answer #1 · answered by Dr.A 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You don't have enough information to solve. dpm is "decays per minute," a measurement of the rate at which decay is taking place. If you knew A, the specific activity of a newly cut piece of wood in dpm/g, and also k, the half-life of activity in the wood, then you could take the measured specific activity, and say that its age is k*log_2(A/2.2). I'm guessing that A and k have standard values; perhaps they are in your textbook. I believe they will be the values associated with carbon-14. I'm not certain, but I think A = 14 dpm/g and k = 5730, so the age of the artifact would be 15,298 years.
2007-09-04 15:29:45 · answer #2 · answered by DavidK93 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋