He is a pioneer in determining the age of the earth's crust by radioactive methods: Who is Bertram Boltwood?

(1870-1927) American chemist and physicist. With his studies of radioactive decay products, he was a pioneer in the development of radiochemistry and the determination of the age of the earth's crust by radioactive methods. Bertram Borden Boltwood was born on July 27, 1870, in Amherst, Massachusetts. After studying chemistry at Yale University from 1889-1892 and at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich from 1892-1894, he received his doctorate from Yale University in 1897. As a lecturer at the same university, he gave first analytical and then physical chemistry courses until 1900. He quit his job at the university at that time and, together with a friend, established a private laboratory providing consultancy services in the field of chemical and mining engineering. He returned to Yale University in 1906 as a professor of physics; After working with Rutherford for a year in England in 1909, he was appointed to the radiochemistry professorship of the same university in 1910 and to the chemistry professorship in 1918. Increasingly frayed by overwork and fatigue, Boltwood committed suicide after a nervous breakdown at Hancock Point, Maine, on August 15, 1927.

Bertram Borden Boltwood (July 27, 1870 Amherst, Massachusetts – August 15, 1927, Hancock Point, Maine) was an American pioneer of radiochemistry.

In 1896, after Becquere's discovery of the radioactivity of uranium, new radioactive elements such as thorium, radium, polonium, and actinium were found within a few years, and then Rutherford and Soddy explained that radioactive elements decomposed into other elements. Having gained extensive knowledge of rare earth elements and uranium ores by analyzing many minerals in his private laboratory, Boltwood began to examine the steps of radioactive transformation in 1904. Finally, he found "ionium," the isotope of thorium and the transition product of the conversion of uranium to radium. This work was an important step in determining the half-life of radium and in the development of radioisotope theory. Later, observing that there is always some amount of lead in uranium ores, Boltwood explained in 1905 that the radioactive conversion process of uranium ends with lead, which is a stable element. Two years later, he suggested for the first time that the age of the earth's crust could be determined by radioactive methods, noting that the higher the percentage of lead in uranium minerals, the greater the geological age of the rock. Thus, radioactive dating, following the path opened by Boltwood, brought a new breakthrough to geoscience and archeology with the carbon-14 method developed by Libby.