Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Archaeological materials, such as bone, organic residues, hair, or sea shells, can serve as substrates for isotopic analysis. Carbon, nitrogen and zinc isotope ratios are used to investigate the diets of past people; these isotopic systems can be used with others, such as strontium or oxygen, to answer questions about population movements and cultural interactions, such as trade.
All isotopes of a given element have the same number of protons in each atom. The term isotope is formed from the Greek roots isos (ἴσος "equal") and topos (τόπος "place"), meaning "the same place"; thus, the meaning behind the name is that different isotopes of a single element occupy the same position on the periodic table.
The first stable isotope was discovered in 1913, and most were identified by the 1930s. [2] Archaeology was relatively slow to adopt the study of isotopes. Whereas chemistry, biology and physics, saw a rapid uptake in applications of isotope analysis in the 1950s and 1960s, following the commercialisation of the mass spectrometer. [2]
Isotope analysis is the determination of isotopic signature, the relative abundances of isotopes of a given element in a particular sample. Isotope analysis is frequently done by isotope ratio mass spectrometry. For biogenic substances in particular, significant variations of isotopes of C, N, and O can occur.
The different isotope ratios for the two kinds of plants propagate through the food chain, thus it is possible to determine if the principal diet of a human or an animal consists primarily of C 3 plants (rice, wheat, soybeans, potatoes) or C 4 plants (corn, or corn-fed beef) by isotope analysis of their flesh and bone collagen (however, to ...
The analysis of 'stable isotopes' is normally concerned with measuring isotopic variations arising from mass-dependent isotopic fractionation in natural systems. On the other hand, radiogenic isotope analysis [3] involves measuring the abundances of decay-products of natural radioactivity, and is used in most long-lived radiometric dating methods.
The term stable isotope has a meaning similar to stable nuclide, ... (isotope analysis), yielding an isotope ratio that can be used as a research tool.
Position-specific isotope analysis, also called site-specific isotope analysis, is a branch of isotope analysis aimed at determining the isotopic composition of a particular atom position in a molecule. Isotopes are elemental variants with different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei, thereby having different atomic masses. Isotopes are found ...