{"id":205519,"date":"2025-03-24T17:26:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T17:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learnexams.com\/blog\/?p=205519"},"modified":"2025-03-24T17:26:34","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T17:26:34","slug":"three-naturally-occurring-isotopes-of-carbon-exist-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/24\/three-naturally-occurring-isotopes-of-carbon-exist-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Three naturally occurring isotopes of carbon exist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Three naturally occurring isotopes of carbon exist: The atomic mass of carbon is 12.01 amu. Which of the three carbon isotopes is most abundant in nature?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A) carbon-12<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B) carbon-13<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>C) carbon-14<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>D) all three occur with equal abundance<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><mark style=\"background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)\" class=\"has-inline-color has-ast-global-color-6-color\"><strong>The correct answer and explanation is :<\/strong><\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The correct answer is <strong>A) carbon-12<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Explanation:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Carbon exists in nature in three isotopes: <strong>carbon-12 (\u00b9\u00b2C)<\/strong>, <strong>carbon-13 (\u00b9\u00b3C)<\/strong>, and <strong>carbon-14 (\u00b9\u2074C)<\/strong>. These isotopes are forms of carbon that differ in the number of neutrons in their nuclei. While the atomic number of carbon is 6 (meaning it always has 6 protons), the number of neutrons in the nucleus varies, which gives rise to the different isotopes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Carbon-12 (\u00b9\u00b2C)<\/strong>:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Carbon-12 is the most abundant isotope of carbon, making up about <strong>98.9%<\/strong> of all naturally occurring carbon. Its nucleus contains 6 protons and 6 neutrons. This isotope is stable and is the standard by which atomic masses are measured, with its atomic mass assigned as exactly 12 atomic mass units (amu).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Carbon-13 (\u00b9\u00b3C)<\/strong>:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Carbon-13 makes up about <strong>1.1%<\/strong> of naturally occurring carbon. It has 6 protons and 7 neutrons, and while it is stable, it is much less abundant than carbon-12. It is commonly used in various scientific applications, such as stable isotope labeling in molecular biology and metabolic studies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Carbon-14 (\u00b9\u2074C)<\/strong>:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope that occurs in trace amounts in nature, approximately <strong>0.0000000001%<\/strong> of carbon. It has 6 protons and 8 neutrons. This isotope is used in radiocarbon dating to estimate the age of organic materials, as it decays over time with a half-life of about 5,730 years. Despite its usefulness in dating, carbon-14 is extremely rare compared to carbon-12 and carbon-13.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The reason the atomic mass of carbon is <strong>12.01 amu<\/strong> is because it is a weighted average of the masses of all the naturally occurring carbon isotopes. Since carbon-12 is by far the most abundant isotope, its contribution to the atomic mass is dominant, leading to an atomic mass close to 12 but slightly above due to the presence of carbon-13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thus, <strong>carbon-12 (\u00b9\u00b2C)<\/strong> is the most abundant isotope in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Image Request:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image-1331.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-205520\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three naturally occurring isotopes of carbon exist: The atomic mass of carbon is 12.01 amu. Which of the three carbon isotopes is most abundant in nature? A) carbon-12 B) carbon-13 C) carbon-14 D) all three occur with equal abundance The correct answer and explanation is : The correct answer is A) carbon-12. Explanation: Carbon exists [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exams-certification"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learnexams.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}