EES 1030 Lecture 13: 13
11 May 2017
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Ees:1030 - geologic time and rock rules ii. Radiometric dating: how we put absolute dates on things. Remember, our atomic number is defined by the number of protons, but our mass number is defined by the number of neutrons in an atom. You can have extra neutrons and still be the same element. Isotope basics: an isotope of an element has the same number of _______________________ but a different number of ________________________. They will change over time into a new form. Why they do this: parent isotopes have unstable nuclei: this makes them radioactive, unstable isotopes change spontaneously to become another isotope of the same element, or a different element. They lose energy in the process and become more stable. This can happen via alpha decay, beta decay, or electron capture (you do not need to know the details of these processes).
