Carbon Dating
With modern satellite photos and radiometric dating, scientists have proven the
age of the Earth’s crust. For samples older than 70,000 years, they used
radiometric dating. This technology is based on carbon dating useful for items up
to 50,000 years old. Devised in the 1950s, it detects and records the amount of
carbon in fossils (dead organisms), wood, or rocks and compares it to the levels of
carbon and oxygen in the atmosphere. A certain amount of carbon is expected in a
sample from the early 19th century and a different amount of carbon from the
17th century. Archaeologists discovered that fossils of the same species were
found on different continents using radiometric dating. For example, the east coast
of South America in areas like Brazil had similar plant life as areas of Western
Africa even though they are thousands of kilometers apart.