If You Obtained a Sample of a Meteorite and Determined

question 95

Multiple Choice

If you obtained a sample of a meteorite and determined the abundances of uranium (²³⁸U) and lead (²⁰⁷Pb) in it, and found that for every 1 uranium atom there were 15 lead atoms, then what would the age of this rock be? Note that this form of uranium decays to this form of lead with a half-life of 700 million years. For simplicity, you can assume that there was no lead in the rock when it originally formed.

• A) 1.4 billion years
• B) 2.8 billion years
• C) 4.0 billion years
• D) 10.5 billion years
• E) 3.6 billion years

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