DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

COLLEGE OF FORESTRY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

CENTRAL MINDANAO UNIVERSITY
ENS 41: INTRODUCTION TO EARTH SCIENCE

NAME: __________________________________ SCORE:_____

Laboratory Exercise 8
Radioactive Dating

INTRODUCTION
Isotopes are atoms of the same element with different amounts of neutrons. Some
isotopes are stable, whereas others are radioactive and decay into other
components called daughter isotopes. For example, hydrogen has two stable
isotopes, 1H (ordinary hydrogen), 2H (deuterium), and one radioactive isotope 3H
(tritium). The superscript denotes the atomic weight of the isotope, representing the
number of protons and neutrons).

This project will introduce you to radiometric dating. You will be asked to calculate
the absolute ages of three different rocks shown on the geologic cross-section
below. These units are A–the basaltic dike, B–the granite, and C–the folded
metamorphic rock (ignore the two sandstone layers for this exercise).

Isotopic analyses have been carried out on minerals separated from the three
crystalline rocks A, B, and C. These data are listed below the cross-section in Table
1. To calculate the ages of the units, you will need to understand the principles of
radiometric dating that you learned in lecture. In this problem, we will be using the
potassium-argon system; potassium-40 has a half-life of 1.25 billion years. Please
read the information on the back of this page and answer the questions printed
there. Please show all of your mathematical work, and put a box around each of your
final answers.

Half Life
Radioactive isotopes decay according to a power law, and the typical unit given for
this is called the half-life. The half-life of a radioactive parent isotope is the time
required for half of the remaining parent to decay to a stable (non-radioactive)
daughter isotope. Half-lives are constant, meaning it is not affected by any processes
on earth.
 Half-Life
Parent Isotopes Daughter
(years)
Carbon-14 Nitrogen-14 5,730
Aluminum-26 Magnesium-26 740,000
Iodine-129 Xenon-129 17,000,000
Uranium-235 Lead-207 704,000,000
Potassium-40 Argon-40 1,300,000,000
Uranium-238 Lead-206 4,500,000,000
Thorium232 Lead-208 14,000,000,000
Rubidium-87 Strontium-87 49,000,000,000
1. How old is a rock if the mineral biotite from the rock has 100,000 Potassium-40
atoms and 100,000 Argon-40 atoms? How old it will be if instead it had 125
Potassium-40 atoms and 875 atoms Argon-40?

2. Isotopic analysis of a granitic intrusion indicates that 25% of the original

Potassium-40 is present. Analysis of a nearby basaltic intrusion indicates that
50% of the original amount of Potassium-40 is present.
2.1. What is the absolute age of the granitic intrusion?
2.2. What is the absolute age of the basaltic intrusion?

3. How many half-lives are required to yield a mineral with 625 atoms of Uranium-
238 and 19,375 atoms of Lead-206?

4. Calculate the age of a rock containing the following atoms of radioactive parent
element A: 1,125,000 atoms. Stable daughter element B: 34,875,000 atoms. The
half-life of element A is 6.25 million years. What is the absolute age of the rock
containing these parent and daughter elements? 


5. A bone was recovered from a site in eastern Africa. Radiocarbon dating suggests
that the bone contains 12.5% of the original amount of Carbon-14. How old is
the bone?

Source:
http://www.meteoritestudies.com/protected_dating.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAsmY4ocWSA