Potassium-40 ⁴⁰K)

Question

Potassium-40 ⁴⁰K)

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Potassium-40 decays to the stable gas, argon-40 through beta decay. This process is known as K-Ar dating and is commonly used by geologists to determine the age of rocks and minerals.

Answer: C 
 The half-life of potassium-40 is 1.25 billion years, which means that it takes that amount of time for half of the original amount of potassium-40 to decay. Therefore, the full-life of potassium-40 is twice as long as the half-life, or 2.5 billion years.

Answer: E 
 While potassium-40 is used in geology to date rocks, it is not commonly used in paleoanthropology. Carbon-14, on the other hand, is frequently used by paleoanthropologists to date organic materials, such as bones and wood.

Potassium-40 40K)

Potassium-40 ⁴⁰K)