Decay routes Uranium decays to lead via a series of alpha (and beta) decays, in which 238U with daughter nuclides undergo total eight alpha and six beta decays whereas 235U with daughters only experience seven alpha and four beta decays.

Is uranium lead dating effective?

In a paper published this week in Science, geochemist Roland Mundil of the Berkeley Geochronology Center (BGC) and his colleagues at BGC and UC Berkeley report that uranium/lead (U/Pb) dating can be extremely accurate - to within 250,000 years - but only if the zircons from volcanic ash used in the analysis are

Can you burn uranium?

Energy from the uranium atom If enough of these expelled neutrons cause the nuclei of other U-235 atoms to split, releasing further neutrons, a fission chain reaction can be achieved. It is this process, in effect burning uranium, which occurs in a nuclear reactor.