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What are two ways that a fossil's age can be determined?
One is radioactive dating? I don't know of any others besides looking at layers and which is on top
10 Answers
- 6 years ago
The two ways that a fossil's age can be determined are radiometric and stratigraphic.
The stratigraphic method determines the RELATIVE ages of fossils in the different strata. That is, the fossils in lower strata will be older than the fossils in upper strata.
The radiometric method determines the ACTUAL age of the material in the strata in which the fossils are found.
The two methods working together provide the information about the changes in the types of fossils over real time.
Added
@Kathy's and #Zardoz's answers, in combination with the above, exposes @CRR's answer as the creationist BS misrepresentation that it is.
- ZardozLv 76 years ago
One method is not radioisotopic dating. A fossil's age isn't susceptible to radioisotopic dating because it is composed of replacement minerals not the minerals original to the creature. One isotopically dates igneous layers above and below the fossil and uses those dates to set high and low limits on the age of the fossil.
Another method uses index fossils. The researcher uses common fossils, often of microscopic organisms, of which the age range is know. To be a good index fossil, the species must be easily identifiable, ubiquitous and short lived.
Source(s): [n] = 10ⁿ - KathyLv 76 years ago
Around 1800, William Smith in England, who was a canal surveyor, noticed that he could map out great tracts of rocks on the basis of their contained fossils. The sequences he saw in one part of the country could be matched precisely with the sequences in another. These were the first principles of stratigraphy that older rocks lie below younger rocks and that fossils occur in a particular, predictable order.geologists began to build up the stratigraphic column, the familiar listing of divisions of geological time — Jurassic, Cretaceous, Tertiary, and so on. Each time unit was characterized by particular fossils. The scheme worked all round the world, without fail.
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- CRRLv 76 years ago
You can tell the age of a fossil by the age of the layer it is in. You can tell the age of the layer by the types of fossils that are in it.