<P> The method was developed by Willard Libby in the late 1940s and soon became a standard tool for archaeologists . Libby received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in 1960 . The radiocarbon dating method is based on the fact that radiocarbon is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen . The resulting radiocarbon combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide , which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis ; animals then acquire C by eating the plants . When the animal or plant dies , it stops exchanging carbon with its environment , and from that point onwards the amount of C it contains begins to decrease as the C undergoes radioactive decay . Measuring the amount of C in a sample from a dead plant or animal such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died . The older a sample is , the less C there is to be detected , and because the half - life of C ( the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed ) is about 5,730 years , the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to around 50,000 years ago , although special preparation methods occasionally permit accurate analysis of older samples . </P>
<P> The method was developed by Willard Libby in the late 1940s and soon became a standard tool for archaeologists . Libby received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in 1960 . The radiocarbon dating method is based on the fact that radiocarbon is constantly being created in the atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays with atmospheric nitrogen . The resulting radiocarbon combines with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide , which is incorporated into plants by photosynthesis ; animals then acquire C by eating the plants . When the animal or plant dies , it stops exchanging carbon with its environment , and from that point onwards the amount of C it contains begins to decrease as the C undergoes radioactive decay . Measuring the amount of C in a sample from a dead plant or animal such as a piece of wood or a fragment of bone provides information that can be used to calculate when the animal or plant died . The older a sample is , the less C there is to be detected , and because the half - life of C ( the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed ) is about 5,730 years , the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to around 50,000 years ago , although special preparation methods occasionally permit accurate analysis of older samples . </P>
radiocarbon dating is based on which decay process
radiocarbon dating is based on which decay process
radioactive decay
radioactive decay