Question

What property of carbon and other elements can be used to date fossils and rocks, among other things?

Answer 1

half-life

Carbon-14 has a relatively short half-life. It decays quickly compared to some other unstable isotopes. So carbon-14 dating is useful for specimens younger than 50,000 years old. Thats a blink of an eye in geologic time. But radiocarbon dating is very useful for more recent events. One important use of radiocarbon is early human sites. Carbon-14 dating is also limited to the remains of once-living things. To date rocks, scientists use other radioactive isotopes.