carbon-14 dating (also known as radiocarbon dating) to estimate the age of certain objects. Measuring carbon-14 levels in human tissue could help forensic scientists determine age and year of death in cases involving unidentified human remains.
How does forensic carbon-14 dating work?
Radiocarbon dating works by comparing the three different isotopes of carbon. Isotopes of a particular element have the same number of protons in their nucleus, but different numbers of neutrons. This means that although they are very similar chemically, they have different masses.
What is Radiocarbon Dating? Radiocarbon dating is a method that provides objective age estimates for carbon-based materials that originated from living organisms. An age could be estimated by measuring the amount of carbon-14 present in the sample and comparing this against an internationally used reference standard.