Radiometric dating

Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to date
materials such as rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurities were selectively incorporated when
they were formed. The method compares the abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope within
the material to the abundance of its decay products, which form at a known constant rate of decay.[1] The
use of radiometric dating was first published in 1907 by Bertram Boltwood[2] and is now the principal
source of information about the absolute age of rocks and other geological features, including the age of
fossilized life forms or the age of Earth itself, and can also be used to date a wide range of natural and man-
made materials.

Together with stratigraphic principles, radiometric dating methods are used in geochronology to establish
the geologic time scale.[3] Among the best-known techniques are radiocarbon dating, potassium–argon
dating and uranium–lead dating. By allowing the establishment of geological timescales, it provides a
significant source of information about the ages of fossils and the deduced rates of evolutionary change.
Radiometric dating is also used to date archaeological materials, including ancient artifacts.

Different methods of radiometric dating vary in the timescale over which they are accurate and the materials
to which they can be applied.

Fundamentals

Radioactive decay
All ordinary matter is made up of combinations of chemical elements, each with its own atomic number,
indicating the number of protons in the atomic nucleus. Additionally, elements may exist in different
isotopes, with each isotope of an element differing in the number of neutrons in the nucleus. A particular
isotope of a particular element is called a nuclide. Some nuclides are inherently unstable. That is, at some
point in time, an atom of such a nuclide will undergo radioactive decay and spontaneously transform into a
different nuclide. This transformation may be accomplished in a number of different ways, including alpha
decay (emission of alpha particles) and beta decay (electron emission, positron emission, or electron
capture). Another possibility is spontaneous fission into two or more nuclides.

While the moment in time at which a particular nucleus decays is unpredictable, a collection of atoms of a
radioactive nuclide decays exponentially at a rate described by a parameter known as the half-life, usually
given in units of years when discussing dating techniques. After one half-life has elapsed, one half of the
atoms of the nuclide in question will have decayed into a "daughter" nuclide or decay product. In many
cases, the daughter nuclide itself is radioactive, resulting in a decay chain, eventually ending with the
formation of a stable (nonradioactive) daughter nuclide; each step in such a chain is characterized by a
distinct half-life. In these cases, usually the half-life of interest in radiometric dating is the longest one in the
chain, which is the rate-limiting factor in the ultimate transformation of the radioactive nuclide into its stable
daughter. Isotopic systems that have been exploited for radiometric dating have half-lives ranging from only
about 10 years (e.g., tritium) to over 100 billion years (e.g., samarium-147).[4]
For most radioactive nuclides, the half-life depends
solely on nuclear properties and is essentially
constant.[5] This is known because decay constants
measured by different techniques give consistent
values within analytical errors and the ages of the same
materials are consistent from one method to another. It
is not affected by external factors such as temperature,
pressure, chemical environment, or presence of a
magnetic or electric field.[6][7][8] The only exceptions
are nuclides that decay by the process of electron
capture, such as beryllium-7, strontium-85, and
zirconium-89, whose decay rate may be affected by
local electron density. For all other nuclides, the
proportion of the original nuclide to its decay products
changes in a predictable way as the original nuclide
decays over time. This predictability allows the relative
abundances of related nuclides to be used as a clock to
measure the time from the incorporation of the original
nuclides into a material to the present.
Example of a radioactive decay chain from lead-

Decay constant determination 212 (212Pb) to lead-208 (208Pb) . Each parent

nuclide spontaneously decays into a daughter
The radioactive decay constant, the probability that an nuclide (the decay product) via an α decay or a β−
atom will decay per year, is the solid foundation of the decay. The final decay product, lead-208 (208Pb),
common measurement of radioactivity. The accuracy is stable and can no longer undergo spontaneous
and precision of the determination of an age (and a radioactive decay.
nuclide's half-life) depends on the accuracy and
precision of the decay constant measurement.[9] The
in-growth method is one way of measuring the decay constant of a system, which involves accumulating
daughter nuclides. Unfortunately for nuclides with high decay constants (which are useful for dating very
old samples), long periods of time (decades) are required to accumulate enough decay products in a single
sample to accurately measure them. A faster method involves using particle counters to determine alpha,
beta or gamma activity, and then dividing that by the number of radioactive nuclides. However, it is
challenging and expensive to accurately determine the number of radioactive nuclides. Alternatively, decay
constants can be determined by comparing isotope data for rocks of known age. This method requires at
least one of the isotope systems to be very precisely calibrated, such as the Pb–Pb system.

Accuracy of radiometric dating

The basic equation of radiometric dating requires that neither the parent nuclide nor the daughter product
can enter or leave the material after its formation. The possible confounding effects of contamination of
parent and daughter isotopes have to be considered, as do the effects of any loss or gain of such isotopes
since the sample was created. It is therefore essential to have as much information as possible about the
material being dated and to check for possible signs of alteration.[10] Precision is enhanced if measurements
are taken on multiple samples from different locations of the rock body. Alternatively, if several different
minerals can be dated from the same sample and are assumed to be formed by the same event and were in
equilibrium with the reservoir when they formed, they should form an isochron. This can reduce the
problem of contamination. In uranium–lead dating, the concordia
diagram is used which also decreases the problem of nuclide loss.
Finally, correlation between different isotopic dating methods may
be required to confirm the age of a sample. For example, the age of
the Amitsoq gneisses from western Greenland was determined to be
3.60 ± 0.05 Ga (billion years ago) using uranium–lead dating and
3.56 ± 0.10 Ga (billion years ago) using lead–lead dating, results
that are consistent with each other.[11]: 142–143
Thermal ionization mass
Accurate radiometric dating generally requires that the parent has a spectrometer used in radiometric
long enough half-life that it will be present in significant amounts at dating.
the time of measurement (except as described below under "Dating
with short-lived extinct radionuclides"), the half-life of the parent is
accurately known, and enough of the daughter product is produced to be accurately measured and
distinguished from the initial amount of the daughter present in the material. The procedures used to isolate
and analyze the parent and daughter nuclides must be precise and accurate. This normally involves isotope-
ratio mass spectrometry.[12]

The precision of a dating method depends in part on the half-life of the radioactive isotope involved. For
instance, carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. After an organism has been dead for 60,000 years, so
little carbon-14 is left that accurate dating cannot be established. On the other hand, the concentration of
carbon-14 falls off so steeply that the age of relatively young remains can be determined precisely to within
a few decades.[13]

Closure temperature
The closure temperature or blocking temperature represents the temperature below which the mineral is a
closed system for the studied isotopes. If a material that selectively rejects the daughter nuclide is heated
above this temperature, any daughter nuclides that have been accumulated over time will be lost through
diffusion, resetting the isotopic "clock" to zero. As the mineral cools, the crystal structure begins to form
and diffusion of isotopes is less easy. At a certain temperature, the crystal structure has formed sufficiently to
prevent diffusion of isotopes. Thus an igneous or metamorphic rock or melt, which is slowly cooling, does
not begin to exhibit measurable radioactive decay until it cools below the closure temperature. The age that
can be calculated by radiometric dating is thus the time at which the rock or mineral cooled to closure
temperature.[14][15] This temperature varies for every mineral and isotopic system, so a system can be
closed for one mineral but open for another. Dating of different minerals and/or isotope systems (with
differing closure temperatures) within the same rock can therefore enable the tracking of the thermal history
of the rock in question with time, and thus the history of metamorphic events may become known in detail.
These temperatures are experimentally determined in the lab by artificially resetting sample minerals using a
high-temperature furnace. This field is known as thermochronology or thermochronometry.

The age equation

The mathematical expression that relates radioactive decay to geologic time is[14][16]

D* = D0 + N(t) (eλt − 1)
where
 t is age of the sample,
D* is number of atoms of the radiogenic daughter
isotope in the sample,
D0 is number of atoms of the daughter isotope in the
original or initial composition,
N(t) is number of atoms of the parent isotope in the
sample at time t (the present), given by N(t) = N0e−λt,
and
λ is the decay constant of the parent isotope, equal to the
inverse of the radioactive half-life of the parent isotope[17]
times the natural logarithm of 2.
The equation is most conveniently expressed in terms of the
measured quantity N(t) rather than the constant initial value No .

To calculate the age, it is assumed that the system is closed (neither

parent nor daughter isotopes have been lost from system), D0 either
must be negligible or can be accurately estimated, λ is known to
high precision, and one has accurate and precise measurements of
D* and N(t).

The above equation makes use of information on the composition Lu-Hf isochrons plotted of meteorite
of parent and daughter isotopes at the time the material being tested samples. The age is calculated from
the slope of the isochron (line) and
cooled below its closure temperature. This is well established for
the original composition from the
most isotopic systems.[15][18] However, construction of an isochron intercept of the isochron with the y-
does not require information on the original compositions, using axis.
merely the present ratios of the parent and daughter isotopes to a
standard isotope. An isochron plot is used to solve the age equation
graphically and calculate the age of the sample and the original composition.

Modern dating methods

Radiometric dating has been carried out since 1905 when it was invented by Ernest Rutherford as a method
by which one might determine the age of the Earth. In the century since then the techniques have been
greatly improved and expanded.[17] Dating can now be performed on samples as small as a nanogram using
a mass spectrometer. The mass spectrometer was invented in the 1940s and began to be used in radiometric
dating in the 1950s. It operates by generating a beam of ionized atoms from the sample under test. The ions
then travel through a magnetic field, which diverts them into different sampling sensors, known as "Faraday
cups," depending on their mass and level of ionization. On impact in the cups, the ions set up a very weak
current that can be measured to determine the rate of impacts and the relative concentrations of different
atoms in the beams.

Uranium–lead dating method

Uranium–lead radiometric dating involves using uranium-235 or uranium-238 to date a substance's absolute
age. This scheme has been refined to the point that the error margin in dates of rocks can be as low as less
than two million years in two-and-a-half billion years.[20][21] An error margin of 2–5% has been achieved
on younger Mesozoic rocks.[22]
Uranium–lead dating is often
performed on the mineral zircon
(ZrSiO4 ), though it can be used on
other materials, such as baddeleyite
and monazite (see: monazite
[23]
geochronology). Zircon and
baddeleyite incorporate uranium atoms
into their crystalline structure as
substitutes for zirconium, but strongly
reject lead. Zircon has a very high
closure temperature, is resistant to
mechanical weathering and is very
chemically inert. Zircon also forms
multiple crystal layers during A concordia diagram as used in uranium–lead dating, with data from
metamorphic events, which each may the Pfunze Belt, Zimbabwe.[19] All the samples show loss of lead
record an isotopic age of the event. In isotopes, but the intercept of the errorchron (straight line through the
situ micro-beam analysis can be sample points) and the concordia (curve) shows the correct age of

achieved via laser ICP-MS or SIMS the rock.[15]

techniques.[24]

One of its great advantages is that any sample provides two clocks, one based on uranium-235's decay to
lead-207 with a half-life of about 700 million years, and one based on uranium-238's decay to lead-206
with a half-life of about 4.5 billion years, providing a built-in crosscheck that allows accurate determination
of the age of the sample even if some of the lead has been lost. This can be seen in the concordia diagram,
where the samples plot along an errorchron (straight line) which intersects the concordia curve at the age of
the sample.

Samarium–neodymium dating method

This involves the alpha decay of 147 Sm to 143 Nd with a half-life of 1.06 x 1011 years. Accuracy levels of
within twenty million years in ages of two-and-a-half billion years are achievable.[25]

Potassium–argon dating method

This involves electron capture or positron decay of potassium-40 to argon-40. Potassium-40 has a half-life
of 1.3 billion years, so this method is applicable to the oldest rocks. Radioactive potassium-40 is common in
micas, feldspars, and hornblendes, though the closure temperature is fairly low in these materials, about
350 °C (mica) to 500 °C (hornblende).

Rubidium–strontium dating method

This is based on the beta decay of rubidium-87 to strontium-87, with a half-life of 50 billion years. This
scheme is used to date old igneous and metamorphic rocks, and has also been used to date lunar samples.
Closure temperatures are so high that they are not a concern. Rubidium-strontium dating is not as precise as
the uranium–lead method, with errors of 30 to 50 million years for a 3-billion-year-old sample. Application
of in situ analysis (Laser-Ablation ICP-MS) within single mineral grains in faults have shown that the Rb-Sr
method can be used to decipher episodes of fault movement.[26]

Uranium–thorium dating method

A relatively short-range dating technique is based on the decay of uranium-234 into thorium-230, a
substance with a half-life of about 80,000 years. It is accompanied by a sister process, in which uranium-
235 decays into protactinium-231, which has a half-life of 32,760 years.

While uranium is water-soluble, thorium and protactinium are not, and so they are selectively precipitated
into ocean-floor sediments, from which their ratios are measured. The scheme has a range of several
hundred thousand years. A related method is ionium–thorium dating, which measures the ratio of ionium
(thorium-230) to thorium-232 in ocean sediment.

Radiocarbon dating method

Radiocarbon dating is also simply called carbon-14
dating. Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon,
with a half-life of 5,730 years[28][29] (which is very
short compared with the above isotopes), and decays
into nitrogen.[30] In other radiometric dating methods,
the heavy parent isotopes were produced by
nucleosynthesis in supernovas, meaning that any Ale's Stones at Kåseberga, around ten kilometres
parent isotope with a short half-life should be extinct south east of Ystad, Sweden were dated at 56 CE
using the carbon-14 method on organic material
by now. Carbon-14, though, is continuously created
found at the site.[27]
through collisions of neutrons generated by cosmic
rays with nitrogen in the upper atmosphere and thus
remains at a near-constant level on Earth. The carbon-14 ends up as a trace component in atmospheric
carbon dioxide (CO2 ).

A carbon-based life form acquires carbon during its lifetime. Plants acquire it through photosynthesis, and
animals acquire it from consumption of plants and other animals. When an organism dies, it ceases to take
in new carbon-14, and the existing isotope decays with a characteristic half-life (5730 years). The
proportion of carbon-14 left when the remains of the organism are examined provides an indication of the
time elapsed since its death. This makes carbon-14 an ideal dating method to date the age of bones or the
remains of an organism. The carbon-14 dating limit lies around 58,000 to 62,000 years.[31]

The rate of creation of carbon-14 appears to be roughly constant, as cross-checks of carbon-14 dating with
other dating methods show it gives consistent results. However, local eruptions of volcanoes or other events
that give off large amounts of carbon dioxide can reduce local concentrations of carbon-14 and give
inaccurate dates. The releases of carbon dioxide into the biosphere as a consequence of industrialization
have also depressed the proportion of carbon-14 by a few percent; in contrast, the amount of carbon-14 was
increased by above-ground nuclear bomb tests that were conducted into the early 1960s. Also, an increase
in the solar wind or the Earth's magnetic field above the current value would depress the amount of carbon-
14 created in the atmosphere.

Fission track dating method

This involves inspection of a polished slice of a material to
determine the density of "track" markings left in it by the
spontaneous fission of uranium-238 impurities. The uranium
content of the sample has to be known, but that can be determined
by placing a plastic film over the polished slice of the material, and
bombarding it with slow neutrons. This causes induced fission of
235 U, as opposed to the spontaneous fission of 238 U. The fission

tracks produced by this process are recorded in the plastic film. The
uranium content of the material can then be calculated from the
number of tracks and the neutron flux.

This scheme has application over a wide range of geologic dates.

For dates up to a few million years micas, tektites (glass fragments
from volcanic eruptions), and meteorites are best used. Older
materials can be dated using zircon, apatite, titanite, epidote and Apatite crystals are widely used in
fission track dating.
garnet which have a variable amount of uranium content.[32]
Because the fission tracks are healed by temperatures over about
200 °C the technique has limitations as well as benefits. The technique has potential applications for
detailing the thermal history of a deposit.[33]

Chlorine-36 dating method

Large amounts of otherwise rare 36 Cl (half-life ~300ky) were produced by irradiation of seawater during
atmospheric detonations of nuclear weapons between 1952 and 1958. The residence time of 36 Cl in the
atmosphere is about 1 week. Thus, as an event marker of 1950s water in soil and ground water, 36 Cl is also
useful for dating waters less than 50 years before the present. 36 Cl has seen use in other areas of the
geological sciences, including dating ice[34] and sediments.

Luminescence dating methods

Luminescence dating methods are not radiometric dating methods in that they do not rely on abundances of
isotopes to calculate age. Instead, they are a consequence of background radiation on certain minerals. Over
time, ionizing radiation is absorbed by mineral grains in sediments and archaeological materials such as
quartz and potassium feldspar. The radiation causes charge to remain within the grains in structurally
unstable "electron traps". Exposure to sunlight or heat releases these charges, effectively "bleaching" the
sample and resetting the clock to zero. The trapped charge accumulates over time at a rate determined by
the amount of background radiation at the location where the sample was buried. Stimulating these mineral
grains using either light (optically stimulated luminescence or infrared stimulated luminescence dating) or
heat (thermoluminescence dating) causes a luminescence signal to be emitted as the stored unstable electron
energy is released, the intensity of which varies depending on the amount of radiation absorbed during
burial and specific properties of the mineral.
These methods can be used to date the age of a sediment layer, as layers deposited on top would prevent the
grains from being "bleached" and reset by sunlight. Pottery shards can be dated to the last time they
experienced significant heat, generally when they were fired in a kiln.

Other methods
Other methods include:

Argon–argon (Ar–Ar)
Iodine–xenon (I–Xe)
Lanthanum–barium (La–Ba)
Lead–lead (Pb–Pb)
Lutetium–hafnium (Lu–Hf)
Hafnium–tungsten dating (Hf-W)
Potassium–calcium (K–Ca)
Rhenium–osmium (Re–Os)
Uranium–uranium (U–U)
Krypton–krypton (Kr–Kr)
Beryllium (10Be–9Be)[35]

Dating with decay products of short-lived extinct radionuclides

Absolute radiometric dating requires a measurable fraction of parent nucleus to remain in the sample rock.
For rocks dating back to the beginning of the solar system, this requires extremely long-lived parent
isotopes, making measurement of such rocks' exact ages imprecise. To be able to distinguish the relative
ages of rocks from such old material, and to get a better time resolution than that available from long-lived
isotopes, short-lived isotopes that are no longer present in the rock can be used.[36]

At the beginning of the solar system, there were several relatively short-lived radionuclides like 26 Al, 60 Fe,
53 Mn, and 129 I present within the solar nebula. These radionuclides—possibly produced by the explosion

of a supernova—are extinct today, but their decay products can be detected in very old material, such as that
which constitutes meteorites. By measuring the decay products of extinct radionuclides with a mass
spectrometer and using isochronplots, it is possible to determine relative ages of different events in the early
history of the solar system. Dating methods based on extinct radionuclides can also be calibrated with the
U–Pb method to give absolute ages. Thus both the approximate age and a high time resolution can be
obtained. Generally a shorter half-life leads to a higher time resolution at the expense of timescale.

The 129I – 129Xe chronometer

129 129
I beta-decays to Xe with a half-life of 16 million years. The iodine-xenon chronometer[37] is an
isochron technique. Samples are exposed to neutrons in a nuclear reactor. This converts the only stable
127 128 128
isotope of iodine ( I) into Xe via neutron capture followed by beta decay (of I). After irradiation,
samples are heated in a series of steps and the xenon isotopic signature of the gas evolved in each step is
129 128
analysed. When a consistent Xe/ Xe ratio is observed across several consecutive temperature steps, it
can be interpreted as corresponding to a time at which the sample stopped losing xenon.
Samples of a meteorite called Shallowater are usually included in the irradiation to monitor the conversion
127 128 129 128
efficiency from I to Xe. The difference between the measured Xe/ Xe ratios of the sample and
129 127
Shallowater then corresponds to the different ratios of I/ I when they each stopped losing xenon. This
in turn corresponds to a difference in age of closure in the early solar system.

The 26Al – 26Mg chronometer

26 26
Another example of short-lived extinct radionuclide dating is the Al – Mg chronometer, which can be
26 26
used to estimate the relative ages of chondrules. Al decays to Mg with a half-life of 720 000 years. The
26
dating is simply a question of finding the deviation from the natural abundance of Mg (the product of
26 27 24
Al decay) in comparison with the ratio of the stable isotopes Al/ Mg.[38]
26 26 26 27
The excess of Mg (often designated Mg*) is found by comparing the Mg/ Mg ratio to that of other
Solar System materials.[39]
26 26
The Al – Mg chronometer gives an estimate of the time period for formation of primitive meteorites of
only a few million years (1.4 million years for Chondrule formation).[40]

A terminology issue
In a July 2022 paper in the journal Applied Geochemistry, the authors proposed that the terms "parent
isotope" and "daughter isotope" be avoided in favor of the more descriptive "precursor isotope" and
"product isotope", analogous to "precursor ion" and "product ion" in mass spectrometry.[41]

See also
Earth sciences
portal
Geophysics portal

Physics portal

Hadean zircon
Isotope geochemistry
Paleopedological record
Radioactivity
Radiohalo
Sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP)

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Further reading
Gunten, Hans R. von (1995). "Radioactivity: A Tool to Explore the Past" ([Link]
ord/292801/files/[Link]) (PDF). Radiochimica Acta. 70–71
(s1): 305–413. doi:10.1524/[Link]-issue.305 ([Link]
[Link]-issue.305). S2CID 100441969 ([Link]
D:100441969).
Magill, Joseph; Galy, Jean (2005). "Archaeology and Dating". Radioactivity Radionuclides
Radiation. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 105–115. Bibcode:2005rrr..book.....M ([Link]
[Link]/abs/2005rrr..book.....M). doi:10.1007/3-540-26881-2_6 ([Link]
007%2F3-540-26881-2_6). ISBN 978-3-540-26881-9.
Allègre, Claude J (4 December 2008). Isotope Geology. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN 978-0521862288.
 McSween, Harry Y; Richardson, Steven Mcafee; Uhle, Maria E; Uhle, Professor Maria
(2003). Geochemistry: Pathways and Processes (2 ed.). Columbia University Press.
ISBN 978-0-231-12440-9.
Harry y. Mcsween, Jr; Huss, Gary R (29 April 2010). Cosmochemistry. Cambridge University
Press. ISBN 978-0-521-87862-3.

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