Carbon-14?

Question

I have a few questions about carbon 14.

1. How does it decay and establish a small constant level in the atmosphere?

2. How does that level establish in plants?

3. How does this level esablish in animals?

4. How is carbon-14 significant in death?

5. How can a geiger counter be used to age an artifact?

If you could answer these it is much appreciated. Thank-you!!!

If you answer any of the questions note which one you are answering please.

Answer 1

1. C14 is constantly being created in the upper atmosphere by nitrogen absorbing a neutron (see reference for details). This creation of c14 in the upper atmosphere balances the decay of c14.

2 C14 is taken into plant via respiration as co2, it is then used throughout the plant as if it were c12.

3. Animals eat the plants and the c14 in the plant is incorporated into the animal in the same way that carbon 12 is used within the animal.

4. Since c14 is only taken in through respiration (in plants) and feeding (in animals) then uptake of c14 stops at the death of the organism.

5. The half-life of a radioactive substance is how long it will take for half the atoms in a sample to decay. After 1 half-life then the sample will be half as radioactive, after 2 half-lives it will be only a quarter as radioactive. Since we know that uptake of c14 stops at the death of the organism we can measure the radioactivity of the sample, compare it to the base line and be able to say how many half-lives ago the organism died, since each compound has a fixed half-life it is simple to convert half-lives to years. In the case of artifacts many artifacts contain organic materials, eg leather, wood or are found in situ with organic residues and so can be carbon dated.

Answer 2

In general, carbon is a mixture of regular carbon -12 and radioactive carbon -14. Living organisms have a constant mixture of these two isotopes. When an organism dies, the carbon 12 remains but the carbon -14 decays. By measuring how much carbon - 14 is still left in an artifact, you can calculate how long ago it died.

You can use this concept to answer your questions

Answer 3

C-12, C-13 and C-14 are all isotopes of carbon. the form of protons in the nucleus determines the factor, i.e. all C atoms have 6 protons of their nucleus (if there is something yet 6 protons, then the factor isn't carbon) to boot protons, there are additionally neutrons in the nucleus of all atoms (in basic terms one isotope of hydrogen has no neutrons) and that's the form of neutrons that makes one isotope of an factor distinctive from yet another isotope of the comparable factor C-12 has 6 protons and six neutrons C-13 has 6 protons and seven neutrons C-14 has 6 protons and eight neutrons observe that the form of protons + form of neutrons provides the mass form of the isotope extra: after seeing a number of the different solutions, purely choose to help make sparkling 2 issues ... purely by using fact C-12 is thru a methods the main ample isotope of carbon (maximum carbon contemporary in nature is C-12) it remains purely that ... an isotope of carbon. it is likewise no longer significant whether a definite configuration of 6 protons and a few form of neutrons is will stay at the same time continuously as long as they may be assembled for some arbitrarily short volume of time ... that is purely the version between sturdy and risky isotopes