Practice question · Multiple choice
Radiocarbon cannot date dinosaur fossils. What limits it?
Hints
- How many half-lives fit into 65 million years?
- Ask what a fossil is physically made of.
Show the answer
A. Its half-life leaves no measurable C-14 after ~50,000 years
Why
Two independent reasons. After about ten half-lives nothing measurable remains, and a permineralised fossil is rock, which is why potassium-argon and uranium-lead date the surrounding strata instead.
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