Scott Klarr Jr
All about radiometric dating - and you thought there was only carbon dating
Radiometric dating (often called radioactive dating) is a technique used to date materials, usually based on a comparison between the observed abundance of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope and its decay products, using known decay rates. It is the principal source of information about the absolute age of rocks and other geological features, including the age of the Earth itself, and can be used to date a wide range of natural and man-made materials. Among the best-known techniques are radiocarbon dating, potassium-argon dating and uranium-lead dating, however there are 18 or more different radiometric dating methods. By allowing the establishment of geological timescales, it provides a significant source of information about the ages of fossils and the deduced rates of evolutionary change. Radiometric dating is also used to date archaeological materials, including ancient artifacts.
Different methods of radiometric dating vary in the timescale over which they are accurate and the materials to which they can be applied.
Debunking Creationist Lies About Carbon Dating
Living snails that carbon-date to 2,300 years old, a living seal that was carbon-dated at 1,300 years old, and 8,000-year-old living penguins. Not to mention dinosaur bones that dated to 20,000 years ago. Obviously carbon dating doesn't work, unless you understand it. Here's the explanation that even a 5th-grader can understand.
New Zealand's E=Mc2 Radiometric Dating Video
The geological timescale is how we date, correlate and classify rock formations and geological events. It provides the time framework for all studies of the history of the Earth and its life.
It is used for assigning geological age to rocks, fossils and economic minerals, and for calibrating the rates of geological processes such as fault displacement and plate rotation, submergence, uplift and erosion of the land, earthquake frequency and volcanic activity. Rates of climate change, sea-level change, biodiversity change and organic evolution also are measured in terms of the geological timescale.
Dating rocks with fossils uses the succession of species of animals and plants that are found in successive layers of rock, or strata. Changes in fossil species through time have resulted from evolution, migration and extinction.
Fossils yield a relative time scale: one in which events or time periods are placed in chronological order but not dated absolutely in terms of thousands or millions of years ago. To determine such absolute ages for specific events or horizons in New Zealand's geological record we use radiometric dating of mineral grains, shells or bone.
The Mathematics Behind Radiometric Dating
This video covers the subject of Radiometric Dating in a little more detail, specifically the mathematics behind it, and the fact of nuclear synthesis in enabling us to determine how Radioactive Decay works.
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Phillip Feb 28, 2009
in order for any of this to work there must be a scale to start with. Since we cannot physically go back 2,000 years or 20,000 years or 1,000,000 years we will never have an accurate way to measure any of such things. We can only speculate as to how things decay over time. There are many things that we cannot measure such as how the Ice Age effected things and other unmeasurable things of the like.
Abercrombie And Fitch Feb 19, 2010
Thank you very much for your geat post,Learned a lot and saw a lot about a lot!
Yeni Diziler Mar 02, 2010
Thank you very much for your geat post...