Virtual General Chemistry Laboratory

Name
Nuclear Chemistry
Date
Experiment 5 - Radiocarbon Dating Initial Activity:

Activity Age
Sample (counts/sec) (yr) 0 0 0 Curve for
Decay 0 Carbon-14
Present-day materials 2500 0 5730 0
wood 0 5000 0 11460 0

Activity (counts/s)
1
paper 0 7500 0 17190 0
bone 0 0.9
10000 0 22920 0
Archaeological objects 12500 0 28650 0
0.8
bone, Bering land bridge 15000 0 34380 0
wood, tomb of pharoah Zoser 0.7 17500 0
bone, La Brea tar pits 20000 0
0.6
paper, Dead Sea scrolls 22500 0
skull, Laguna Beach, CA 0.5
25000 0
wooden timber, Stonehenge 0.4 27500 0
bone, Pedra Furada, Brazil 30000 0
0.3
wooden beam, India 32500 0
0.2 35000 0
37500 0
0.1 40000 0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
0
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000
Time (yr)
Analysis

1. In what year, approximately, did the person die whose skull was discovered in Laguna Beach, CA? In what year was the tree cut down that was used for the wooden timber in
Stonehenge? (Include A.D. or B.C.)

2. The Shroud of Turin is a piece of linen bearing the image of a man that has for generations been claimed to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. If the activity of C-14 in a present-day
sample of flax (from which linen is made) is 76 counts/s, and that in a sample of the shroud is 70 count/s, how old is the shroud? In approximately what year was it made? Could it have
been the burial cloth of Christ?

3. Given the inaccuracies in reading the Geiger counter scale and in estimating the age of an object from the graph, give a rough estimate of the error (+/- years) in the ages you
determined in questions 1 and 2.