University:
Northeastern Universit
Course:
HIST 3940 | European History
Academic year:

2022
Views:

215

Pages:

2
Author:

Vivian Bernard

Answers to Additional Practice Questions for Radiometric Dating 1. You are part of an archeological expedition to unearth the remains of an ancient monastery in Egypt. Historical documents give the age of the monastery as approximately 700 years old. You need physical evidence to support this claim. As part of the excavation you find a wooden bowl. Using carbon dating methods, you determine that the bowl has 75% of its original C14 remaining. The half-life of C14 is approximately 5730 years. Does this physical evidence support the historical documents? This does NOT support the historical documents. The C14 evaluation ultimately says that the correct dating of the bowl would be 2,865 years, not 5,730 years old. 2. A paleontologist estimates that when a particular rock formed, it contained 36 mg of the radioactive isotope potassium-40. The rock now contains 4.5 mg of potassium-40. The half-life of potassium-40 is 1.25 billion years. About how old is the rock? The approximate age of this rock is 3.57 billion years old. 3. The skeletal remains of a wooly mammoth, found on the Åland Islands in Finland, were found to have approximately 50% of their original level of C14. What is the approximate age of the mammoth’s skeleton? (The half-life of C14 is 5730 years). A. 2865 years B. 5730 years C. 11,460 years D. 17,190 years 4. What is the half-life of the element depicted in the graph below? This element’s half-life is 2000 years.