Question

36


Natalia_Robles
what information do geologists obtain from relative dating?
@e.mccormick

Answer 1

That's more like it.

OK. So, know what relative dating is? Lets start there.

Answer 2

ok

Answer 3

isn't relative dating the science of determining the relative order of past events?

Answer 4

Yes. So you know that some things happen in a basic order. Like the alphabet goes a, b, c, and so on till it hits z. So where you are in the alphabet is relative to the letters around it and where you are on a time line is relative to certain events.

Answer 5

oh ok

Answer 6

so a is relative to b because they are close to eachther?

Answer 7

Now, things that happened recently are going to have animal bones. But of you go back a thousand years, you mint find the bones of a recently extinct animal. Go back several thousand and you could find more extinct things. Eventually you pass the dinosaurs and get back to the first plants and other critters.

The times those critters were around is a relative event to when their bodies got covered with mud or ash and fossilized.

Answer 8

In a sense, yes. And things in time r could be found by bone s because r and s being relative.... to expand the idea some.

Answer 9

k

Answer 10

Now here is where it gets a bit odd. In general, you think the older stuff would always be deeper. However, there is continental drift, mountain building, things being carved away by water, and so on to deal with. They have found some of the oldest rocks pretty high up. Part of what confirmed this was fossils of really basic critters.

So one thing geologists learn is how much really old stuff has been exposed.

Now lets say something older is right above something newer! Odd... but what if the ground were to have been folded? This actually happens. The relative nature can help there by showing older vs. newer.

But note I never gave a date. Relative is pretty hazy on dates.

Answer 11

ok. i found the answer on the textbook. it says that rocks are older tha they appear.

Answer 12

Here is another form of relative dating. Let me draw it.
In this 1 is oldest, then 2, then 3, then 4. This is an injection of some other form of rock through older rack, but the top of everything was worn away and then something newer landed there.