How fossils can help us to find age of rocks ?

Question

How fossils can help us to find age of rocks ?

Answer 1

Carbon 14 dating-- see, carbon 14 is found in fossils, and scientists know its half-life, or how long it takes for there to be half as much carbon 14 as there used to be once it starts decaying.  (e.g. if the half life of an element is 4 days, and you started with a pound of it, then 4 days later there'd be half a pound, and four days after that a quarter of a pound, and so on).  If they know how much carbon 14 there was when the thing was alive and how much is there now and what the half life is, they can use logarithms to find out how long ago the organism died.

Answer 2

Oh come on.. carbon dating is a bunch of bull.. there is no possible way to EVER know if something is 200 billion years old!! You cant prove it's accurate b/c there was noone around that long ago to confirm it!! Just try to imagine for a second 200 billion years ago.. your mind can't honestly even fathom that long ago!!!!!! Plus climate change, errosion, tempature, and the enviroment in general can cause things to collect more or less carbon. Let me explain, perhaps a million years go the earth could of been WAY hotter than it is today, or it could of been full of ice. Again, we can't confirm it with any means of science unless someone invents a time machine. It's all assumptions, you can't even test it as a theory b/c your test subject that is assumed to be millions of years old can't be compared beside something that is actually millions of years old.. b/c you can't confirm it's real age!! Science claims it can, to that I just roll my eyes and use my brain. Carbon dating is a crock. I bring this up b/c "fossils" are assumed to be millions of years old, when they probally aren't all that old, you can't say they are b/c you can't confirm it as truth. Use your logic people!!!!!!!! You can't call me crazy, b/c you simply can't prove carbon 14 dating is accurate!! No way no how. Assuming the fossil is in the same exact tempature and enviroment that we see today it could possibly be accurate, but not so long ago places that are now iced over were warm areas, and warmer climates today used to be covered in ice. We can't measure millions and billions of years in the past. Heck, we can't even figure out what "really" causes cancer so they say everything does. Don't believe that c**p.

Also, watch these ridiculous discovery channel documentaries on dinosaurs.. somehow they can find a skeleton and know how they sounded, the texture of their skin, their color, rather they had scales or fur, and behavior? COME ON NOW.. Lets be smart and realize they are using their imaginations to come up with that stuff and stop accepting everything as fact just b/c it's called "science".

Answer 3

Organisms become fossilized once they become buried in strata, so it is usually a safe assumption that the age of the fossil equals the age of the rock that formed around the organism.  So determining the age of the fossil will give you the age of the rock!

Carbon dating is the only absolute method.  This is done by geo-chemists who determine the ratio of Carbon isotopes in a fossilized organism, which always decay at an exact rate.

Relative dating is also a tool which works by comparing the time relationships of all the fossilized organisms nearby, but that only tells you which rock is younger or older, rather than giving an exact date.  Before a fossil database was developed, scientists would compare evolutionary features for relative dating.  

William "strata" Smith was the pioneer of bio-stratigraphy.

Answer 4

here is my project i did all about fossils !

ENjoy

5. How do fossils form?

There are five different ways that a fossil can be formed.

Permineralization, Unaltered preservation, Carbonization, Authigenic preservation Randecrystalization.

The most common is:

Step1: When the thing has died it slowly sinks to the bottom of natures floor. Enemies/ other animals eat the fleshy body of the creature. After 7 weeks all that is left is the shell.

Step2: Seven months after process 1 the shell gradually becomes covered with dirt and sand. Layers are formed providing a shield around the shell protecting it from all sorts of damage. After a few hundred years the fossil is 7 feet below the surface.

Step3: Time continues to pass, 1,000 years, 10,000 years and more

Step4: Finally the chemicals in the shell go through a series of changes. As the shell slowly decays water seeps through it replacing the shell with rock like minerals (calcite Iron or Silica).

Step5: After millions of years the original shell is replaced by the minerals and what remains is a rock like copy of the shell. The fossil has the same shape as the original object but is now shaped as a rock

Step6: After millions of years the fossil rises to the surface. The fossil can then be removed from the ground and be examined.

7. What types of organisms, or parts of organisms, are most likely to give rise to fossils?

Hard objects that are likely to form into fossils are teeth, wood, bones and shells.

10. In which environments are fossils most likely to form?

Fossils need to be buried quickly.

Have no predators around them

Not exposed to a lot of water.

14. What Biblical explanations could there be for the existence of fossils?

Any time when there is a flood there is a big chance that a fossil could be created. The soil is turned to mud making a good burial for fossils to be created.

i hope this helps

Answer 5

I find it amazing that the mention of fossils seems always to bring out comments on the existence of the Christian (and Jewish, for that matter) God and the validity of the Bible/Old Testament.

Simply, different fossils are associated with different epochs. Finding a fossil in a rock thus gives you the epoch in which it was formed.