- Radioactive Dating: Looking at Half-Lives Using M&Ms
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How do scientists actually know these ages? Geologic age dating—assigning an age to materials—is an entire discipline of its own. In a way this field, called geochronology, is some of the purest detective work earth scientists do. There are two basic approaches: Here is an easy-to understand analogy for your students: Absolute age dating is like saying you are 15 years old and your grandfather is 77 years old.
To determine the relative age of different rocks, geologists start with the assumption that unless something has happened, in a sequence of sedimentary rock layers, the newer rock layers will be on top of older ones. This is called the Rule of Superposition.
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This rule is common sense, but it serves as a powerful reference point. Geologists draw on it and other basic principles http: Relative age dating also means paying attention to crosscutting relationships. Say for example that a volcanic dike, or a fault, cuts across several sedimentary layers, or maybe through another volcanic rock type. Pretty obvious that the dike came after the rocks it cuts through, right? With absolute age dating, you get a real age in actual years.
Radioactive Dating: Looking at Half-Lives Using M&Ms
Based on the Rule of Superposition, certain organisms clearly lived before others, during certain geologic times. The narrower a range of time that an animal lived, the better it is as an index of a specific time. No bones about it, fossils are important age markers. But the most accurate forms of absolute age dating are radiometric methods. This method works because some unstable radioactive isotopes of some elements decay at a known rate into daughter products.
This rate of decay is called a half-life. Half-life simply means the amount of time it takes for half of a remaining particular isotope to decay to a daughter product. Good discussion from the US Geological Survey: So geochronolgists just measure the ratio of the remaining parent atom to the amount of daughter and voila, they know how long the molecule has been hanging out decaying. There are a couple catches, of course.
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Not all rocks have radioactive elements. The site also provides fact sheets on the age of the Earth and isochron dating. National Museum Smithsonian Institution.
Provides brief overview of 1 relative dating and stratigraphic methods, 2 absolute dating and radiometric dating, including a table with parent to daughter isotopes and half lives of those isotopes commonly used in radiometric dating, 3 paleomagnetics and 4 geologic time. Pamela Gore, Georgia Perimeter College.
Short discussion of radioactive dating and stratigraphic principles. Includes tables of common radioactive parent isotopes and their stable daughter products, and half lives of common radioactive isotopes. Geologic time , U. This online version of their informative booklet contains short, content explanations about relative time, major geologic time divisions, index fossils for use in age dating, radiometric dating and the age of the earth. Content information about absolute and relative dating methods used by the U.
Radioactive Dating: Looking at Half-Lives Using M&Ms
Radiometric dating , Wikipedia. Content information from on-line encyclopedia that explains various. An Equal Opportunity University. Contact the Webmaster for questions and comments. Last modified August 1, Chris Stassen, Talk Origins Archive. Offers scientific explanations of isochron radiometric dating some technical , equations, graphs, descriptions of methods, discussions of potential problems and methods scientists take to ensure reproducible results and avoid sample contamination. Changing Views of the History of the Earth.