The introduction of the carbon-14 (14C, radiocarbon) dating method in 1947 (for which Willard F. Libby received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1960) transformed many aspects of environmental science by permitting numerical dating of fossils, artifacts and deposits whose age previously had to be estimated. Organisms and events could now be put into chronological order and correlated objectively, and the search for mechanisms of change placed on a sounder footing, leading to a better understanding of such matters as the viscosity of the Earth’s mantle, the mechanisms of climatic change, processes of organic evolution and extinction, and climatic history, within the 70 000 or so years spanned by the method.
Three isotopes of carbon are present in the atmosphere in the ratio 100 : 1 : 0.01, of which two, 12C and 13C, are stable. The third, 14C, is radioactive and thus subject to decay, but it is continually replenished by the action of cosmic rays, which interact with 14N atoms in the...
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Vita-Finzi, C. (2005). Carbon-14 Dating. In: Oliver, J.E. (eds) Encyclopedia of World Climatology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht . https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3266-8_35
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