1. Which of the following techniques could be used to date pottery?
a)
fission track dating
b)
potassium-argon dating
c)
thermoluminescence dating
d)
all of the above
2. Which of the following techniques can be used to date mollusk shells
and egg shells?
a)
radiocarbon dating
b)
fission track dating
c)
electron spin resonance dating
d)
a and c
e)
all of the above
3. Radiometric dating techniques are all based on knowledge of:
a)
the rate at which certain isotopes decay
b)
known half-lives for certain isotopes
c)
how to measure the amount of certain isotopes remaining in a sample
d)
all of the above
4. Which of the following dating techniques is radiometric?
a)
carbon-14
b)
potassium-argon
c)
fission track
d)
all of the above
5. If you were excavating a site that lacks any ancient organic matter
but has a strata of volcanic ash that you believed was about 2-3 million years old, what
dating technique would you most likely employ?
a)
potassium-argon
b)
radiocarbon
c)
amino acid racemization
d)
all of the above
6. If an isotope of some element has a half-life of 15,000 years,
approximately how much of the isotope atoms in a dating sample will remain after 30,000
years?
a)
1/2
b)
1/4
c)
1/8
d)
nothing
7. Which of the following techniques can date wood and feathers?
a)
radiocarbon dating
b)
thermoluminescence dating
c)
electron spin resonance dating
d)
all of the above
8. Which of the following statements is true of carbon-14?
a)
It is produced by X-rays bombarding nitrogen-14 atoms in the atmosphere.
b)
Humans get it from the plants and animals that they eat.
c)
The amount of carbon-14 in your body will progressively increase following death.
d)
all of the above
9. Radiocarbon dates for samples that have had prolonged exposure to
the gasses coming out of car exhaust systems usually are:
a)
too young
b)
too old
c)
more accurate
10. Which of the following isotopes has the shortest half-life?
a)
carbon-14
b)
potassium-40
c)
uranium-238
11. Which of the following statements is true concerning potassium-argon
dating?
a)
It is used to date charcoal and other organic matter.
b)
It can date things that are 3,000,000 years old.
c)
It is not a radiometric dating technique.
d)
all of the above are true
12. The oldest radiocarbon dates that potentially can be obtained with
the accelerator mass spectrometry method go back to about ____________ years ago.
a)
8,000
b)
40,000
c)
100,000
d)
300,000
13. Which of the following statements is true about fission track
dating?
a)
Glass can be dated with this technique.
b)
It is a radiometric technique based on the fact that lead-206 decays and produces
uranium-238.
c)
This method can only date things that go back in time to about 1/2 million years.
d)
all of the above are true
14. Which of the following statements is true of thermoluminescence and
electron spin resonance dating?
a)
Neither destroys or alters the sample in the dating process.
b)
They are both radiometric techniques.
c)
They both are based on the weight change of samples when they are heated.
d)
all of the above are true
15. Which of the following statements is true?
a)
Cosmic radiation does not enter the Earth's atmosphere at a constant rate.
b)
There is no danger of contaminating radiocarbon dating samples by handling them with
bare hands.
c)
Most plants and animals have C-14 in their bodies. However, humans do not.
d)
Radiocarbon dating is not often used because it can only date organic matter which
rarely survives in the ground.
16. Which of the following dating techniques could date something that
is older than 100,000 years?
a)
radiocarbon dating
b)
dendrochronology
c)
electron spin resonance
d)
b and c