Willard Libby
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Willard Frank Libby was an American physical chemist noted for his role in the 1949 development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology and palaeontology. For his contributions to the team that developed this process, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960.
Willard Libby
Libby in the lab, c. 1960s
Radiocarbon dating
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Radiocarbon dating is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon.
Radiocarbon dating helped verify the authenticity of the Dead Sea scrolls.
North Ronaldsay sheep on the beach in North Ronaldsay. In the winter, these sheep eat seaweed, which has a higher δ13C content than grass; samples from these sheep have a δ13C value of about −13‰, which is much higher than for sheep that feed on grasses.
Measuring 14 C is now most commonly done with an accelerator mass spectrometer
The stump of a very old bristlecone pine. Tree rings from these trees (among others) are used in building calibration curves.