Carbon dating companies

Carbon-14 is absorbed by plants through photosynthesis. Libby surmised that traces of 14C could always be found in carbon dioxide in the air. It had been shown that 14C is continually being produced by cosmic rays colliding with atmospheric nitrogen. The isotope, Carbon-14, abbreviated as 14C (the isotope number is followed by the element) was isolated in 1940 by two of Libby’s students while working on the Manhattan Project. While Willard Libby received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960 for his contributions to the development of the radiocarbon dating method, the process that led to the discovery of this method began much earlier. Radiocarbon dating has made a substantive contribution to our understanding of Colorado prehistory by allowing archaeologists to place excavated sites in chronological order and allowing comparison of contemporary archaeological cultures. Developed by a chemist born in Colorado, there are now commercial and academic laboratories across the globe that conduct radiocarbon dating.

Radiocarbon dating is the most common technique used in ascertaining the age of archaeological and paleontological sites during the last 45,000 years.