Understanding Radioactivity in Geology: The Basics of Decay
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This page first made public: Jul 23, 2006
Summary
One of a collection of PowerPoint/Excel modules designed to reinforce quantitative skills in geologic context. The module explores the exponential decay of radioactive parents through the analogy with popping popcorn. Students build a spreadsheet to calculate the number of unpopped kernels of popcorn as a function of time starting with the probability that a given kernel will pop during a 10-sec interval. The module introduces the mathematics of the exponential function as a modeling function in both analytical and numerical contexts.
Learning Goals
- Consider a familiar occurrence of exponential decay in a quantitative way.
- Gain experience in forward modeling of an exponential decay phenomenon.
- Consider the relationship between the decay constant and the probability that a particular parent atom of a radioactive isotope will convert to its radiogenic daughter atom
- Gain experience in fitting a trendline to a column of data.
