what is the scientific technology developed to know how old the fossil are?

[anuhya sai]

is it called carbon dating?can u please explain how that process is done?actually it is by detecting the ratios of different isotopes in the same element of the fossil material.but plz explain in a bit detailed and simple way if u can!

[Woden501]

A specific type of the carbon atom has a half life of a certain number of years (I don't remember the exact number), so scientists measure the amount of decay and use that number to determine how old the atom is.

Say the half life is 10,000 years.
When the scientist tests the atom he finds that it has decayed to 1/16384 of its original. This means that it is 140,000 years old.

1/2=10,000 years
1/16384=1/(2^14) ---------> 140,000 years

[Paul B]

"Different isotopes of the same element in the fossil material" definitely suggests carbon dating. That is useful back to around 20,000 years ago.

For older material, lots of other methods are used, usually involving radioactive decay of one element to another. For example, Rutherford used uranium-lead dating to show that Cambrian rocks and the fossils in them were around 500 million years old.

[sanjana]

well yeah i guess it Radiocarbon dating...its a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring isotope carbon-14 to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to about 60,000 years. Raw radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" (BP), "Present" being AD 1950. then these dates are given calender dates,,u can check out more about the process on google or wikipedia...

[SAI PRASAD S]

the old fossil plants are dated using carbon14

[Paras B]

the method is called carbon dating

actually when a thing is living it consumes carbon in two forms C12 and a radio active C14 isotope
the C14 isotope is unstable and is converted in C12 again
till the animal or plant is living the ratio of C12 to C14 is const

but after death the plant or animal stop consuming C14 or C12 and C14 starts converting to C12 ..... thus to find out the age of a fossil the scientist find out the ratio of C12 to C14 and multiply it by the half life period of C14

this is carbon dating