Mass spectrometry radioactive dating

Choosing the best method for radiocarbon dating depends on the quantity of available sample or, in the case of expensive materials, how much of it you can afford to be destroyed. AMS dating, for example, involves burning a sample to convert it to graphite. AMS dating is an advanced method compared to radiometric dating using liquid scintillation counters LSC. Fees for AMS analyses are higher.

There are two techniques in measuring radiocarbon in samples—through radiometric dating and by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry AMS. The two techniques are used primarily in determining carbon 14 content of archaeological artifacts and geological samples. These two radiocarbon dating methods use modern standards such as oxalic acid and other reference materials. Although both radiocarbon dating methods produce high-quality results, they are fundamentally different in principle.

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry AMS is a technique for measuring the concentrations of rare isotopes that cannot be detected with conventional mass spectrometers. The original, and best known, application of AMS is radiocarbon dating, where you are trying to detect the rare isotope 14 C in the presence of the much more abundant isotopes 12 C and 13 C. The natural abundance of 14 C is about one 14 C atom per trillion 10 12 atoms of 12 C. A nuclear particle accelerator consists essentially of two linear accelerators joined end-to-end, with the join section called the terminal charged to a very high positive potential 3 million volts or higher.

Radiocarbon dating also referred to as carbon dating or carbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon , a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was developed in the late s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby , who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in It is based on the fact that radiocarbon 14 C is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen. The resulting 14 C combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide , which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis ; animals then acquire 14 C by eating the plants.