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New Concept For Calculating The Age Of A Fossil Bone By Uranium-Series Method

Journal: International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research (Vol.4, No. 5)

Publication Date:

Authors : ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Page : 8-14

Keywords : Keywords bone; age; uranium; thorium; equilibrium; radioactive chain;

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Abstract

Abstract The age of a fossil bone can be determined based on the chain of radioactive uranium as far as it behaves like a closed system. Uranium is incorporated into the bone after its death and disintegrates into thorium. The calculation of age is based on the assumption that living tissue does not contain uranium and at the entrance of uranium in the dead tissue it did not contain thorium. Uranium is soluble in water and easily enters the bone while the thorium adsorbs on the clay soil particles since it is insoluble in water. In this work we determined the equations needed to calculate the age of a bone sample. We have shown that age cannot be determined from the activity ratio between uranium-234 and its source uranium-238 because ratio had to be 1 from 3.5 million years before they both entered the bone. Thus we used the activity ratio of thorium-230 and its source uranium-234 which allowed us to go backward up to 350 000 years. In the case where 234U238U is greater than 1 an amount of exogenous 234U should be deducted.

Last modified: 2015-06-28 04:10:46