What modern discipline uses carbon-14 dating to determine the age of organic artifacts?

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Multiple Choice

What modern discipline uses carbon-14 dating to determine the age of organic artifacts?

Explanation:
Carbon-14 dating works because living organisms constantly exchange carbon with their environment, so they contain a known ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12. When the organism dies, it stops taking in carbon, and the carbon-14 decays at a steady rate (half-life about 5,730 years). By measuring how much carbon-14 remains in an organic artifact—like wood, bone, parchment, or textiles—we can estimate how long ago the organism died. This approach, radiocarbon dating, is a central tool in archaeology for dating organic materials across roughly the last 50,000 years. Other methods tailor to different materials: tree-ring dating is precise for wooden samples, potassium-argon dating targets volcanic rocks, and thermoluminescence dates the last heating of ceramics or stones.

Carbon-14 dating works because living organisms constantly exchange carbon with their environment, so they contain a known ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12. When the organism dies, it stops taking in carbon, and the carbon-14 decays at a steady rate (half-life about 5,730 years). By measuring how much carbon-14 remains in an organic artifact—like wood, bone, parchment, or textiles—we can estimate how long ago the organism died. This approach, radiocarbon dating, is a central tool in archaeology for dating organic materials across roughly the last 50,000 years. Other methods tailor to different materials: tree-ring dating is precise for wooden samples, potassium-argon dating targets volcanic rocks, and thermoluminescence dates the last heating of ceramics or stones.

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