What is an abundant isotope?

An abundant isotope is a variant of a chemical element that has a relatively high natural occurrence compared to other isotopes of that element. Isotopes are atoms with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons, leading to varying atomic masses. For example, carbon-12 is an abundant isotope of carbon, making up about 98.9% of naturally occurring carbon, while carbon-14 is much less abundant. The abundance of isotopes is important in fields like geology, Archaeology, and nuclear science for applications such as radiocarbon dating and understanding elemental composition.