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Uranium Decay Series

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The discovery of the ²³⁸U decay chain, of course, started with the seminal work of Marie Curie in identifying and separating ²²⁶Ra. Through the work of the Curies and others, all the members of the ²³⁸U decay chain were identified. An important milestone for geochronometrists was the discovery of ²³⁰Th (called Ionium) by Bertram Boltwood, the Yale scientist who also made the first age determinations on minerals using the U-Pb dating method (Boltwood in 1906 established the antiquity of rocks and even identified a mineral from Sri Lanka-then Ceylon as having an age of 2.1 billion years!)

The application of the ²³⁸U decay chain to the dating of deep sea sediments was by Piggott and Urry in 1942 using the "Ionium" method of dating. Actually they measured ²²⁶Ra (itself through ²²²Rn) assuming secular equilibrium had been established between ²³⁰Th and ²²⁶Ra.

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