Radiation Exemplars Under Development
From ChemPRIME
Radiocarbon Dating
Carbon-14, one of the radioactive isotope of Carbon-12 is widely used in archaeology, geology and hydrogeology to determine the date of samples. It is first found by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben on February 27, 1940.
The half life of Carbon-14 is about 5730 years. After beta-decay, Carbon-14 changes into nitrogen-14.(one neutron break into one proton and a electron) The activity of modern radiocarbon standard is about 14 disintegrations per minute per gram carbon.
Further reading:
http://www.c14dating.com/agecalc.html
http://www.nosams.whoi.edu/about/carbon_dating.html
reference:
http://earthsci.org/fossils/geotime/radate/radate.html
Decay rate changes
Although most decaying of radioisotopes are believed to be constant, that is, unaffected by surrounding conditions, some experiments showed the varying rates. These radioistopes include manganese-54, Ra-226 and silicon-32. This feature is applied in nuclear physics, astrophysics, geology and condensed matter physics.
