Potassium half life dating
18-Jan-2020 05:49
Radiometric dating is a means of determining the "age" of a mineral specimen by determining the relative amounts present of certain radioactive elements.
By "age" we mean the elapsed time from when the mineral specimen was formed.
Therefore the amount of argon formed provides a direct measurement of the amount of potassium-40 present in the specimen when it was originally formed.
Because argon is an inert gas, it is not possible that it might have been in the mineral when it was first formed from molten magma.
The two curves cross each other at half life = 1.00.
At this point the fraction of Rb87 = Sr87 = 0.500; at half life = 2.00, Rb87 = 25% and Sr87 = 75%, and so on. 131, Strahler, Science and Earth History: Points are taken from these curves and a plot of fraction Sr-87/Sr-86 (as ordinate) vs. It turns out to be a straight line with a slope of -1.00.
It merely means that the ratios are the same in the particular magma from which the test sample was later taken.) As strontium-87 forms, its ratio to strontium-86 will increase.The decrease in the amount of potassium required to form the original mineral has consistently confirmed the age as determined by the amount of argon formed.
