Florida Bay Radiochemical data

The use of radioactive isotopes is founded on the known physical property of radioactive material, the half-life. A half-life of an isotope is the amount of time it takes for half of a given number of atoms to "decay" to another element.

The age of objects that contain radioactive isotopes with known half-lives can be calculated by determining the percent of the remaining radioactive material. To use this method successfully certain other prerequisites must be met. These are: 1. the chemistry of the nuclide (element) is known; 2. once the nuclide is incorporated into the substrate the only change is radioactive decay, and 3. in order to be useful, it is relatively easy to measure.