Define radioisotope dating

Certain isotopes are unstable and undergo a process of radioactive decay, slowly and steadily transforming, molecule by molecule, into a different isotope.

This rate of decay is constant for a given isotope, and the time it takes for one-half of a particular isotope to decay is its radioactive half-life.

But for humans whose life span rarely reaches more than 100 years, how can we be so sure of that ancient date? Even the Greeks and Romans realized that layers of sediment in rock signified old age.

But it wasn't until the late 1700s -- when Scottish geologist James Hutton, who observed sediments building up on the landscape, set out to show that rocks were time clocks -- that serious scientific interest in geological age began.

Its crust is continually being created, modified, and destroyed.

For example, a geologist may examine a cutting where the rocks appear as shown in Figure 1.

Here he can see that some curved sedimentary rocks have been cut vertically by a sheet of volcanic rock called a dyke.

These radioactive elements constitute independent clocks that allow geologists to determine the age of the rocks in which they occur.

The radioactive parent elements used to date rocks and minerals are: Radiometric dating using the naturally-occurring radioactive elements is simple in concept even though technically complex.