5. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. If the age of an object older than 50,000 years cannot be determined by radiocarbon dating, then (1 point)

Question

5.   Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5,730 years. If the age of an object older than 50,000 years cannot be determined by radiocarbon dating, then  (1 point)

anonymous · Answer

by counting the depth of earth i mean by counting layers at what depth is it found we can determine it

anonymous · Answer

Not quite. A lot of factors have an impact on the composition of the Earth's crust, and x "layers" does not necessarily mean y time. What's the actual question austin, it seems to cut off half-way through? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Dating_methods

anonymous · Answer

i read this chapter in my previous class it is the topic of evolution in which we have asked to find out the age from fossil and these two methods are used..1)digging earth and 2)carbon dating... i think so this ques is related with that.

underhill · Answer

Kirti,

Scientists generally don't use carbon dating to date the fossils they find, since most scientists presume fossils to be millions of years old in accordance with the theory of evolution.  Since the carbon-14 atom only has a half-life of 5,730 years, no detectable traces would remain after about 50,000 years.

Consequently, fossils are usually dated with other kinds of radioactive isotopes, like uranium-238; this isotope has a half-life in the millions and billions of years.

Carbon-14 dating is actually used more for archaeology than paleontology.