Asked by brooke

Explain how the half-life of a radioactive isotope affects the usefulness of that isotpe in dating specific types of rock?
Answered by Anonymous
Half-lives vary widely: some radioisotopes will be reduced by half in less than a second whereas for others it takes billions of years. So different radioisotopes are best suited to dating rocks of various ages. For example, a scientist wouldn't use a parent isotope with a half-life of only 5,000 years to try to date rocks sandwiched between strata from the Cambrian period.
There are no AI answers yet. The ability to request AI answers is coming soon!