These samples have to be natural matter (i.e., wooden, bones, and shells) or certain minerals and geologic materials that include radioactive isotopes. The price of decay for many radioactive isotopes has been measured; neither heat, pressure, gravity, nor different variables change the rate of decay. Carbon‑14 is important for archaeology as a result of it is not uncommon in archaeological deposits.

Below are a number of the decay series which are generally used in radiometric dating of geological samples. The subsequent step in radiometric dating includes changing the variety of half-lives that have handed into an absolute (i.e., actual) age. This is done by multiplying the number of half-lives which have handed by the half-life decay constant of the mother or father atom (again, Catch app this worth is set in a laboratory).