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Researchers can thus determine the amount of time that has passed since the buried crystal was last exposed to heat.
In the case of thermoluminescence, resetting the crystal clock means heating it to around 500 degrees Celsius.
As a result, different isotopes are better suited to dating different items.
In the case of carbon 14, for example, the half life is only 5,730 years.
Each isotope has what is known as a half-life¿that is, a period of time in which half of the atoms in a population decay into stable daughter elements.