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Lead (82Pb) has four stable isotopes: 204Pb, 206Pb, 207Pb, 208Pb. Lead-204 is entirely a primordial nuclide and is not a radiogenic nuclide. The three isotopes lead-206, lead-207, and lead-208 represent the ends of three decay chains: the uranium series (or radium series), the actinium series, and the thorium series, respectively. These series represent the decay chain products of long-lived primordial U-238, U-235, and Th-232, respectively. However, each of them also occurs, to some extent, as primordial isotopes that were made in supernovae, rather than radiogenically as daughter products. The fixed ratio of lead-204 to the primordial amounts of the other lead isotopes may be used as the baseline to estimate the extra amounts of radiogenic lead present in rocks as a result of decay from uranium and thorium. (See lead-lead dating and uranium-lead dating).
The longest-lived radioisotopes are 205Pb with a half-life of ≈15.3 million years and 202Pb with a half-life of ≈53,000 years. Of naturally occurring radioisotopes, the shortest half-life is 22.20 years for 210Pb, which is useful for studying the sedimentation chronology of environmental samples on time scales shorter than 100 years.
The relative abundances of the four stable isotopes are approximately 1.5%, 24%, 22%, and 52.5%, combining to give a relative atomic mass (abundance-weighted average of the stable isotopes) of 207.2(1). Lead is the element with the heaviest stable isotope, 208Pb. (The more massive 209Bi, long considered to be stable, actually has a half-life of 1.9×1019 years). A total of 38 Pb isotopes are now known, including very unstable synthetic species.