You find an ancient spear and apply dendrochronological methodology to discover that its growth ring pattern corresponds to 5,000 years ago. You are not satisfied with this single method and want to corroborate the date using another approach. You turn to carbon-14 methodology. If the dendrochronology data are correct, how much carbon-14 (compared to modern wood) should be present in the spear.

Question

Biology

Joyce Clayton

27 April, 11:20

You find an ancient spear and apply dendrochronological methodology to discover that its growth ring pattern corresponds to 5,000 years ago. You are not satisfied with this single method and want to corroborate the date using another approach. You turn to carbon-14 methodology. If the dendrochronology data are correct, how much carbon-14 (compared to modern wood) should be present in the spear.

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Answers (1)

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Elias Strong · Answer 1

About 50%

Explanation:

If the ancient spear is correctly 5,000 years and the half-life of carbon 14 is 5,730 years then it will remain about 50% of the original carbon 14 content. Half-life is the amount of time it will take for the original amount of a substance present in another substance to decrease by half