21.10.

2020

Time in Geology

3. Time in Geology
• Time is one of the fundamental concepts
considered in the geological investigations
• There quite a long time interval and several
geological events occurred in the geological history
• The evolution of a region could be realized only by
the determination of the ages of the rocks

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3.1. Dating the rocks
• The age of a rock is the time during which that
rock was formed
• There are mainly three methods to determine the
age:
- Relative dating
- Paleontological dating
- Radiometric dating

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• Relative dating; the rocks units formed during
different geological times can be considered as the
sheets of a book
• The oldest sheet or layer (stratum, pl. strata) is at
the bottom and the youngest at the top which was
defined as the law of superposition
• Therefore the relative age of a unit in this sequence
can be assigned in accordance with the age of
other units in the same sequence based on the
superposition

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• Paleontological dating; paleontology is a branch of
geology which deals with the fossils
• Fossils are the remnants or traces of ancient animals or
plants embedded within the sedimentary rocks
• The animal assemblage found in the rocks is called
fauna, and the plant assemblage flora; the fauna and
flora collectively are called biota
• Each fossil has a certain time span characterized by its
first appearance (origin) and disappearance (extinction)
in the geological record; therefore each geological time
is characterized by certain fossil assemblages

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• If the fossil content of a rock could be identified, the
age of this rock can assigned
• Some fossils cover a wide range in the geological time
while some other a very short time interval
• Very short time interval fossils are more valuable in
dating the rocks
• Such fossils are called marker fossils
• If the fossil characterizes a short time span and also has
a World-wide distribution it is said to be an index fossil
or key fossil
• Using such fossils, the rock sequences in different
localities can be correlated based on their ages

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• Radiometric dating; an atom is composed of
electrons, protons, and neutrons
• Electrons have a negative charge and protons have
a positive charge
• Since neutron is actually a proton and electron
combined, it has no charge
• Protons and neutrons are found in the center;
nucleus of the atom, and electrons spin around the
nucleus in definite paths, or orbits

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• Practically all (99.9%) of the mass of an atom is
found in the nucleus, indicating that electrons have
practically no mass at all
• By adding together the number of protons and
neutrons in the nucleus, the mass number of the
atom is determined
• The atomic number is equal to the number of
protons

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• Atoms of the same element may have different
numbers of neutrons in the nucleus
• Such atoms, called isotopes, have different mass
numbers but the same atomic number
• Some isotopes have unstable nuclei; that is, the
forces which bind the protons and neutrons
together are not sufficiently strong
• As a result, the nuclei spontaneously break apart,
or decay, a process called radioactivity

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• Radioactive isotopes is referred to as the parent,
and the isotopes resulting form the decay of the
parent are termed the daughter products
• Certainly among the most important results of the
discovery of radioactivity is that it provided a
reliable means of the calculating the ages of rocks
and minerals which contain particular radioactive
isotopes, a procedure referred to as radiometric
dating

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• The rates of decay for many isotopes have been
precisely measured and do not vary, at least under the
physical conditions that exist in the outer layers of the
Earth
• Therefore each radioactive isotope used for dating has
been decaying at a fixed rate since the formation of the
rocks in which it occurs and the products of decay have
been accumulating at a corresponding rate
• For example; when uranium is incorporated into a
mineral that crystallizes from magma, there is no lead
(the stable daughter product) from previous decay; as
the uranium in this newly formed mineral disintegrates,
atoms of the daughter product are trapped and
measurable amounts of lead eventually accumulate
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• The time required for one-half of the nuclei in a
sample to decay, called its half-life, is a common
way to express the rate of radioactive disintegration
• If the half-life is known, then the ratio between the
amount of daughter product and the amount of
parent will indicate how long the radioactive
«clock» has been operating
• When the quantities of parent and daughter are
equal (ratio 1:1), we know that one half-life has
transpired

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• Notice that the percentage of radioactive atoms
that decay during one half-life is always the same
• However, the half-life continually decreases
• Thus, as the percentage of radioactive parent
atoms declines, the proportion of stable daughter
atoms rises, with the increase in daughter atoms
just matching the drop in parent atoms
• This fact is the key to radiometric dating

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• Of many radioactive isotopes that exist in nature,
five have been proven important in providing
radiometric ages for ancient rocks; others are
either rare or have half-lives are too short or much
too long to be useful (Carbon 14→Carbon 12; 5730 years)

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3.2. The geologic time scale
• The geologic time scale subdivides the 4.6-billion-
year history of Earth into many different units and
provides a meaningful time frame within which the
events of the geologic past are arranged
• The general characteristics of the geologic time
scale can be outlined as follows:
- The geologic time scale is established according to
the records obtained from the rocks (i.e. fossils and
radiometric dating)
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- The time unit is «one million years» in the geologic
time scale which is an indication of geological processes
to be very slow
- The geologic time scale is composed of several divisions
and subdivisions named as Eon, Era, Period, and Epoch;
the names of the divisions are taken from either
geographic localities or geologic events; for example:
- Cambria is the Latin name for Wales
- Ordovices and Silures are tribes lived in Wales
- Devonshire is a locality in England
- Carboniferous comes from the coal deposits of this age
- Perm is locality in Russia (west of Ural mounts)
- Jura is the name given to the mountains at the east of France
- Creta is the Latin word which means chalk

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• Eons represent the greatest expanses of time; The
eon that began about 542 million years ago is the
Phanerozoic, a term derived from Greek words
meaning “visible life”
• Eons are divided into eras
• The Phanerozoic eon consists of;
- the Paleozoic era (paleo = ancient, zoe = life)
- the Mesozoic era (meso = middle, zoe = life)
- the Cenozoic era (ceno = recent, zoe = life)

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• Each era of the Phaneroic eon is further divided
into time units known as periods
• Each of the periods is divided into still smaller units
called epochs
• The geologic time scale has not gained its final
shape yet; it is modified and subdivided into
shorter time intervals as new findings are added to
our geological knowledge; the boundaries are
calibrated with the new data provide from the
fossils

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