radiometric dating

American  

noun

1. any method of determining the age of earth materials or objects of organic origin based on measurement of either short-lived radioactive elements or the amount of a long-lived radioactive element plus its decay product.

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radiometric dating British  

noun

1. Also called: radioactive dating.  any method of dating material based on the decay of its constituent radioactive atoms, such as potassium-argon dating or rubidium-strontium dating

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radiometric dating Scientific  

/ rā′dē-ō-mĕt′rĭk /

1. A method for determining the age of an object based on the concentration of a particular radioactive isotope contained within it. For inorganic materials, such as rocks containing the radioactive isotope rubidium, the amount of the isotope in the object is compared to the amount of the isotope's decay products (in this case strontium). The object's approximate age can then be figured out using the known rate of decay of the isotope. For organic materials, the comparison is between the current ratio of a radioactive isotope to a stable isotope of the same element and the known ratio of the two isotopes in living organisms. Radiocarbon dating is one such type of radiometric dating.

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Etymology

Origin of radiometric dating

First recorded in 1965–70

Example Sentences

When that lunar magma ocean cooled, that's when the zircon crystals could finally form, locking in chemical signatures that the Field Museum scientists can now measure with radiometric dating technology.

From Salon • Oct. 23, 2023

After determining the materials in the sample and performing radiometric dating, the researchers concluded that the oldest crystals are about 4.46 billion years old.

From Science Daily • Oct. 23, 2023

Through the use of radiometric dating, scientists can study the age of fossils or other remains of extinct organisms to understand how organisms have evolved from earlier species.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

Five types of radiometric dating applied to those animal fossils revealed that they were buried between 117,000 and 108,000 years ago, the researchers report today in Nature.

From Science Magazine • Dec. 18, 2019

But even with radiometric dating, as decay measurements became known, it would be decades before we got within a billion years or so of Earth’s actual age.

From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson