Lecture No.

13: Relative and Absolute Dating

When geologists date rocks, they are determining how long ago they formed as well as the age of
fossils.
Two ways to do this:
1. Relative Dating
2. Absolute Dating

A.Relative Dating
 Determining how old something is compared to something else
 Use words like “older” or “younger” instead of exact numbers
 Relative Dating is when you give the age of a rock or fossil compared to another rock or fossil.
Example: Rock A is OLDER than Rock B.
An actual age in years is not determined.

Rules of Relative Dating

A. Law of Superposition: When sedimentary rock layers are deposited, younger layers are on top of
older deposits.

A. Law of Original Horizontality: Sedimentary rock layers are deposited horizontally. If they are tilted,
folded, or broken, it happened later.

3. Law of Cross-Cutting Relationships: If an igneous intrusion or a fault cuts through existing rocks,
the intrusion/fault is YOUNGER than the rock it cuts through

Absolute Dating
Absolute dating is the process of determining an approximate computed age. The most common
way this is done is called Radiometric Dating. This is based on measuring the amount of radioactive
decay.
Types of Radiometric Dating: Carbon-14 Dating; Potassium-Argon Dating; Uranium-Lead Dating; &
Rubidium-Strontium Dating.
1. Carbon-14 Method
 Living plants and animals contain a constant ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12. Once a plant
or animal dies, no new carbon is taken in. The amount of carbon-14 begins to decrease as
the plant or animal decays.
 The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years.
 The carbon-14 method of radiometric dating is used mainly for dating things that lived
within the last 50,000 years.
2. Potassium-Argon Method
 Potassium-40 has a half-life of 1.3 billion years, and it decays leaving a daughter material
of argon.
 This method is used mainly to date rocks older than 100,000 years
3. Uranium-Lead Method
 Uranium-238 is a radioactive isotope with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Uranium-238
decays in a series of steps to lead-206.
 The uranium-lead method can be used to date rocks more than 10 million years old.
4. Rubidium-Strontium Method
 The unstable parent isotope rubidium-87 forms a stable daughter isotope strontium-87.
 The half-life of rubidium-87 is 49 billion years. This method is used for rocks older than 10
million years.