Uranium-lead radiometric dating
Datación radiométrica uranio-plomo
- Date
- 1905-1907 · confidence high
- Place
- Yale University, New Haven, United States
- Credited to
- Bertram Boltwood; Ernest Rutherford (proposal, 1905)
- People
- 👤 Bertram Boltwood1870–1927👤 Ernest Rutherford1871–1937
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
Rutherford proposed using radioactive decay as a clock, and Boltwood, noticing that lead always accompanied uranium, dated minerals from the ratio between them: he obtained ages of 410 to 2,200 million years, far beyond what Kelvin allowed.
What it led to
- Geochronology
- Absolute geological time scale (Holmes)