The potassium-argon dating method has been used to measure a wide variety of ages. The potassium-argon age of some meteorites is as old as 4,500,000,000 years, and volcanic rocks as young as 20,000 years old have been measured by this method.

When was potassium-argon dating discovered?

1935 In 1935, Klemperer and, independently, Newman and Walke (1935), ascribed, from reasons of isotope systematics, the activity of potassium to a-then unknown — rare isotope K40. This was the first good guess. In 1935, A. O. Nier actually discovered this isotope and found its abundance to be 1.19 · 10-4 of the total K.