Isotopes in minerals
28-Feb-95 23:01:22
Sb: #170756-Isotopes in minerals
Fm: Doug Mitchell 70621,702
To: Jon Woolf 76557,3537
Hi, Jon–
Right, I picked K40 because it was the lightest radioisotope used in
geological dating (C14 is for archaeologists, mostly) I could think of; Rb/Sr
are worse and U/Th still worse. Sr has lots of stable isotopes to take ratios
among and keep the Rb-decay product (Sr87, I think) ratio honest. The only
thing I do not know is how often daters use these stable-isotope cross-checks.
If they use mass spectrometers, these comparisons should be real easy to toss
in.
–Doug