How do we know how old a fossil is? We use carbon, as every living being has carbon. Carbon dating, also known as radiocarbon dating, is a method of estimating the age of carbon-bearing materials up to 60,000 years old. Scroll through to learn how carbon dating works and what a half-life is.

Concepts

carbon dating

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Additional Tags

carbon-bearing materials, half-life, radiocarbon dating, willard libby, carbon-14 dating

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Classroom Considerations

• Knovation Readability Score: 3 (1 low difficulty, 5 high difficulty)