# Carbon 14 dating chemistry

Carbon-14 is constantly be generated in the atmosphere and cycled through the carbon and nitrogen cycles.

At an ar­chaeological dig, a piece of wooden tool is unearthed and the archaeologist finds it to be 5,000 years old.The half-life of a radioactive isotope (usually denoted by $$t_$$) is a more familiar concept than $$k$$ for radioactivity, so although Equation $$\ref$$ is expressed in terms of $$k$$, it is more usual to quote the value of $$t_$$.The currently accepted value for the half-life of will remain; a quarter will remain after 11,460 years; an eighth after 17,190 years; and so on.Radiocarbon dating is used in many fields to learn information about the past conditions of organisms and the environments present on Earth.Radiocarbon dating (usually referred to simply as carbon-14 dating) is a radiometric dating method.The “radiocarbon revolution” made possible by Libby’s discovery greatly benefitted the fields of archaeology and geology by allowing practitioners to develop more precise historical chronologies across geography and cultures.