SP23.

9w Half-life – Homework 2

You do not need to remember the details on this sheet for your exam, but you could be asked to apply your
knowledge to unfamiliar situations.

If we measure how much carbon-14 is left in an organism that was once Half-lives
living, we can find out how long it has been dead.
carbon-14: 5700 years
uranium-234: 700 million years

1 A frozen mammoth body has been found in ice in Norway. The Norwegian government has given you a
1 kg sample of the body. For 1 kg of living mammoth flesh, the activity would be 4000 becquerel (Bq)
from carbon-14 decay. Your sample gives a reading of 250 Bq.
a How many half-lives must have passed for the activity to change from 4000 Bq to 250 Bq? 16
b How long ago did the mammoth die? 91,200 years ago
2 An Egyptian archaeologist has found a mummy in a tomb. You are sent a 10 g sample to date it. When the
mummy was put into the tomb, its activity would have been 8 counts per second, and the sample now has
an activity of 6 counts per second.
the amount of decaying carbon
a Estimate the age of the mummy. 2850 years is consistent
b State any assumptions you made in your answer and how these affect the accuracy of your estimate.
3 A seller on the Internet claims to have pieces of a wooden statue that are 2000 years old. You are asked to
date the wood to see whether the age is correct. The 20 g sample you receive has an activity of 15 counts
per second. For living wood, 20 g would have an activity of 16 counts per second. Estimate the age of the
wood and comment on whether the seller’s claims might be true.
4 An ancient human was found in a peat bog in Ireland. You are given a 20 g sample which has an activity of
4 counts per second. A 10 g sample when living would have had a count rate of 8 counts per second. How
long ago did the man from the bog die?
5 A zoologist has found a turtle shell that he believes may be 75 000 years old. The shell weighs 10 kg. This
10 kg of turtle shell would have had an activity of 40 000 Bq when living. If the shell is 75 000 years old,
what would be a suitable range for the detector to measure the activity correctly? (Hint: work out how many
half-lives would have passed in 75 000 years and hence what the count rate should be now.)
6 Explain why radiocarbon dating using carbon-14 would not be useful for finding out how long ago a tree
died if it was alive five years ago.
7 Some background radiation comes from radon gas produced by radioactive decay in rocks. Explain why the
production of radon gas in a particular place is fairly constant over time.

Extra challenge
The activity of a source decreases with
time, but the rate of change is not
constant. You can work out the rate of
change at any time by drawing a tangent
to the line on the graph and calculating its
gradient.
8 Use the graph opposite to calculate
the rate of change of activity at the
following times.
a 20 seconds
b 40 seconds
c 60 seconds

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