17. Why can't carbon-14 be used to determine the age of fossils that are several hundred thousand years old?
Please and thank you!
1 answer
Radioactive dating is limited by the half life of the element being used. C-14, with a half life of about 6,000 years, is not a good dating element for several hundred thousand years. With half of the material disappearing every 6,000 years or so there isn't enough to count after say 50,000 years.