Absolute dating radiocarbon dating. The development of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating, which allows a date to be obtained from a very small sample, has been very useful in this regard. Other radiometric dating techniques are available for earlier periods. One of the most widely used is potassium–argon dating (K–Ar dating). Potassium-40 is a radioactive isotope of potassium that decays into argon-40. The half-life of potassium-40 is 1.3 billion years, far longer than that of carbon-14, allowing much older samples to be dated. Potassium is common in rocks and minerals, allowing many samples of geochronological or archeological interest to be dated. Argon,
On-Line Isotope Mass Separator or to the REX accelerator for acceleration to higher energies. The facility is operated by the ISOLDE Collaboration comprising CERN and 9 European countries. One of the major experiments in ISOLDE is the Miniball-setup. An upgrade of the post-acceleration system is currently on-going, ready to produce energetic Radioactive-Ion Beams (RIBs) of up to 10 MeV per nucleon in 2018. On-Line Isotope Mass Separator The On-Line Isotope Mass Separator, also known as the ISOLDE Radioactive Ion Beam Facility, is a facility located at CERN on the PS Booster. It started operating in 1967 and was rebuilt twice with major upgrades in