If You Obtained a Sample of a Meteorite and Determined

Multiple Choice

If you obtained a sample of a meteorite and determined the abundances of uranium (²³⁸U) and lead (²⁰⁷Pb) in it, and found that for every 1 uranium atom there were 15 lead atoms, then what would the age of this rock be? Note that this form of uranium decays to this form of lead with a half-life of 700 million years. For simplicity, you can assume that there was no lead in the rock when it originally formed.

A) 1.4 billion years
B) 2.8 billion years
C) 4.0 billion years
D) 10.5 billion years
E) 3.6 billion years