Radioactive tracer such as a cell or tissue, or as a flow tracer to track fluid flow. Radioactive tracers are also used to determine the location of fractures created by hydraulic fracturing in natural gas production. Radioactive tracers form the basis of a variety of imaging systems, such as, PET scans, SPECT scans and technetium scans. Radiocarbon dating uses the naturally occurring carbon-14 isotope as an isotopic label. Isotopes of a chemical element differ only in the mass number. For example, the isotopes of hydrogen can be written as H, H and H, with the mass number at top left. When the
Hydrogen isotope biogeochemistry constants would allow extrapolation to original isotopic compositions. While this solution holds promise, there is too much disagreement in the literature for robust calibrations. Vapor isotope effects occur for protium, deuterium, and tritium, because each isotope has different thermodynamic properties in the liquid and gaseous phases. For water molecules, the condensed phase is more enriched while the vapor is more depleted. For example, rain condensing from a cloud will be heavier than the vapor starting point. Generally, the large variations in deuterium concentrations of water are from the fractionations between liquid, vapor, and solid reservoirs. In contrast to the fractionation