Isotopic Dating

Isotopic Dating / 03B / Leighty / Physical Geology (GLG 101IN) A summary of the basics of isotopic age dating, with discussion of isotopes, half-lives, and radioactive decay processes and how they are used to determine the "number age" or absolute age of certain types of rocks. 0:00 Isotopic Dating 1:43 Isotopic geologic dating 3:39 What's an isotope? 5:23 Radioactive decay 6:18 Parents & daughters 7:23 How radioactive decay happens 7:37 Linear decay 9:14 Exponential decay 12:23 What is half-life? 13:40 Long half-life isotopes 16:28 Short half-life isotopes 18:13 The P:D ratio 19:47 Why does the P:D ratio matter? 21:14 Atomic clock 22:13 Getting a "number age" 23:21 Important constraints 24:23 Isotopic dating - what do we need? 25:23 Interpreting isotopic ages / igneous rocks 26:03 Interpreting isotopic ages / sedimentary rocks 26:27 Interpreting isotopic ages / metamorphic rocks 28:16 Using relative & isotopic ages 29:06 The geologic time scale 29:37 Geologic sequence diagram 31:24 Outro