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Carbon-14, C-14, 14 C or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic matter is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and colleagues (1949) to date archaeological, geological and hydrogeological samples.
Examples include boron-10, carbon-12, and nitrogen-14 (as N − Z = 0 for each pair), or boron-12, carbon-14, and nitrogen-16 (as N − Z = 2 for each pair). Beyond the neutron drip line along the lower left, nuclides decay by neutron emission. Beyond the proton drip line along the upper right, nuclides decay by proton emission. Drip lines have ...
Carbon (6 C) has 14 known isotopes, from 8 C to 20 C as well as 22 C, of which 12 C and 13 C are stable. The longest-lived radioisotope is 14 C, with a half-life of 5.70(3) × 10 3 years. This is also the only carbon radioisotope found in nature, as trace quantities are formed cosmogenically by the reaction 14 N + n → 14 C + 1 H. The most ...
2 He. As in β decay, the decay product X′ has greater binding energy and it is closer to the middle of the valley of stability. The α particle carries away two neutrons and two protons, leaving a lighter nuclide. Since heavy nuclides have many more neutrons than protons, α decay increases a nuclide's neutron-proton ratio.
For example, carbon-14, a radioactive nuclide with a half-life of only 5700(30) years, [27] is constantly produced in Earth's upper atmosphere due to interactions between cosmic rays and nitrogen. Nuclides that are produced by radioactive decay are called radiogenic nuclides, whether they themselves are stable or not.
The decay scheme of a radioactive substance is a graphical presentation of all the transitions occurring in a decay, and of their relationships. Examples are shown below. It is useful to think of the decay scheme as placed in a coordinate system, where the vertical axis is energy, increasing from bottom to top, and the horizontal axis is the proton number, increasing from left to right.
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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 parent isotope with a short half-life ...