explain about the methods of dating in geology?
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OK, first geography is NOT geology *sigh*\n\nLook up carbon dating; you can either tell by the degradation of carbon or by basic layering (what's on the bottom is older than what's on the top).
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Here is one of the most detailed ones available on the internet from the Geological Society of America:\nhttp://www.geosociety.org/science/timescale/timescl.pdf\n\nUSGS has some interesting versions that are put in scale relative to time, so they show dramatically how much longer previous Eons were in comparison to recent Eras:\nhttp://geology.wr.usgs.gov/docs/parks/gtime/gtime2.html\n\nHere is the UC Berkeley Geological Time Machine:\nhttp://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/timeform.html\n\nFinally, if you want to see the coolest images of paleogeography on the net check out Dr Blakey's website at Northern Arizona University:\nhttp://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/nam.html\nor at:\nhttp://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/
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Carbon dating works because carbon decays at a constant speed (half life) and it is a very important science for our kids to learn. Any radioactive element in the world decays under this principle, Plutonium etc.\n\nThe way it works is that every living being, clam or human is made of carbon and generates it through life. When we die, our production stops. This creates an accurate start point. If we are found in 4006, scientists knowing the half life of C-14 and the carbon present in our body, can calculate that our body is 'roughly' 2000 years old. That is as accurate as archilogists need to be.\n\nSo, accuracy is relative. Believe it or not, when an archiologists states that a 'clam' is 5,000 years old plus or minus 200 years, this is considered extremely accurate. Are you saying that clams and penguins were not around thousands of years ago? :)\n\nHope this helps.
253484
they apply to a series of methods called  methods of geophysical prospection.  For each method they use different equipment... use resistivimeter for geoelctric prospection, gravimeters for gravimetric prospection, magnetometers for magnetic prospection, etc...
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One common element that is found on this planet is Carbon. So they study the Half-Life of Radioactive isotopes to comeup with the age of a thing. Before the radioactivity method was discovered, scientists used early method. There is a formula that scientists used (Before the discovery of radioactivity method), which was first derived by Kelvin.\nHere is the formula. \n"\nAge = (To - T)2/ ( pi*K*GG2), \n\nwhere To is the formation temperature, T is today's temperature, pi is 3.14, K is a material property called thermal diffusivity (we'll use 1mm2/sec) and GG is the Earth's geothermal gradient (25 C/km). If To ranges from 1500 to 2000 C, the age of the earth would range from 36-65 m.y." - Courtesy: http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/ \n\nOfcourse, after discovering Radiogenic age determining methods, the way of measuring Age of things has changed.\nHere is the link that has more information of Radiogenic dating methods.\nhttp://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange1/current/lectures/clocks_in_rocks/clocks_in_rocks.html\n\nhttp://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/fosrec/McKinney.html
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The US Geological Survey has several articles with details on how the age is estimated.  They place the age at 4.5-4.6 billion years old.\n\nSome of it has been done by dating the oldest known rocks on earth and the moon, dating the crystals that were created before the rocks.  (Formed and recycled).  And some based on estimates of the ratio of isotopes of lead.
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Radiocarcon dating is used.\nRadiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring isotope carbon-14 to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to ca 60,000 years. Within archaeology it is considered an absolute dating technique. The technique was discovered by Willard Frank Libby and his colleagues in 1949 during his tenure as a professor at the University of Chicago. In 1960, Libby was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his method to use carbon-14 for age determination.\nCarbon has two stable, nonradioactive isotopes: carbon-12 (12C), and carbon-13 (13C). In addition, there are tiny amounts of the unstable isotope carbon-14 (14C) on Earth. Carbon-14 has a half-life of 5730 years and would have long ago vanished from Earth were it not for the unremitting cosmic ray impacts on nitrogen in the Earth's atmosphere, which forms more of the isotope. When cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they undergo various transformations, including the production of neutrons. The resulting neutrons participate in the following reaction on one of the N atoms being knocked out of a Nitrogen (N2) molecule in the atmosphere:\n\n1n + 14N → 14C + 1p \n \nAtmospheric 14C, New Zealand[1] and Austria[2]. The New Zealand curve is representative for the Southern Hemisphere, the Austrian curve is representative for the Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric nuclear weapon tests almost doubled the concentration of 14C in the Northern Hemisphere [3].The highest rate of carbon-14 production takes place at altitudes of 9 to 15 km (30,000 to 50,000 ft), and at high geomagnetic latitudes, but the carbon-14 spreads evenly throughout the atmosphere and reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide also permeates the oceans, dissolving in the water. For approximate analysis it is assumed that the cosmic ray flux is constant over long periods of time; thus carbon-14 could be assumed to be continuously produced at a constant rate and therefore that the proportion of radioactive to non-radioactive carbon throughout the Earth's atmosphere and surface oceans is constant: ca. 1 part per trillion (600 billion atoms/mole). For more accurate work, the temporal variation of the cosmic ray flux can be compensated for with calibration curves. If these curves are used, their accuracy and shape will be the limiting factors in the determination of the radiocarbon age range of a given sample.\n\nPlants take up atmospheric carbon dioxide by photosynthesis, and are eaten by animals, so every living thing is constantly exchanging carbon-14 with its environment as long as it lives. Once it dies, however, this exchange stops, and the amount of carbon-14 gradually decreases through radioactive decay.\n\n14C → 14N + 0β \nBy emitting a β particle(Beta decay), carbon-14 is changed into stable (non-radioactive) nitrogen-14. This decay can be used to get a measure of how long ago a piece of once-living material died. However, aquatic plants obtain some of their carbon from dissolved carbonates which are likely to be very old, and thus deficient in the carbon-14 isotope, so the method is less reliable for such materials as well as for samples derived from animals with such plants in their food chain.
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hmmm ..... go here !>>> under google >>> http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=glaciological%20volcanic%20index:%20definition,%20scale,%20implications&hl=en&lr=&oi=scholart\nNew modeling of the Vostok ice flow line and implication for the glaciological chronology of the … - group of 10 »\nF Parrenin, F Rémy, C Ritz, MJ Siegert, J Jouzel - JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, 2004 - ggy.bris.ac.uk \n... 2. Description of the Glaciological Dating Model Used [ 5 ] To compute the age of ...\nNote that there is a circular problem in the model definition: the thinning ...
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Radioactive Isotopes - are called  the "Clocks in Rocks" and these are used for calculating the Numerical and Relative Ages for Rocks \nIn Numerical dating,  - radioactive isotopes ("parents") that spontaneously decay to form new isotopes ("daughters") while releasing energy. For example, decay of the parent isotope Rb-87 (Rubidium) produces a stable daughter isotope, Sr-87 (Strontium), while releasing a beta particle (an electron from the nucleus). ("87" is the atomic mass number = protons + neutrons.) \nMany minerals contain radioactive isotopes. In theory, the age of any of these minerals can be determined by \n1) counting the number of daughter isotopes in the mineral, and  \n2) using the known decay rate to calculate the length of time required to produce that number of daughters. \nSO TO SUM UP THE PARENTS PRODUCE DAUGHTERS BECAUSE UNLIKE THE PARENTS THE DAUGHTER CAN NOT PRODUCE ANOTHER DAUGHTER WITHOUT ABSORBING    ANOTHER ELECTRON INTO ITS NUCLEUS WHICH HAS TO COME FROM ANOTHER PARTICLE somewhat like impregnation and that is probably why they are called daughters.
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It's called radio-carbon dating.\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio-carbon_dating
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Carbon-14 is only reliable for dating objects up to about 60,000 years old.  The website below explains the equation in detail if your interested.
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No. The basic geological column was first realised by creationists such as Rev. Sedgewick and William Smith, following logical rules such as the principle of superposition (sediments were deposited on top of older sediments). They observed that layers of different ages contained some different fossils which could aid in recognising the layers, without always having to physically trace them along. This was well before the Origin of Species.\n\nNowdays, the geological column is dated by absolute radiometric methods (eg. Uranium-Lead and Potassium-Argon dating). There are hundreds of radiometrically-dated tie-points in the geological column. Index fossils, along with other methods such as magnetostratigraphy, are used to correlate, relatively, between different locations, and to the radiometrically-determined time scale.
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Certain substances have a radioactive halflife.  That means it takes a certain amount of time for that substance to decay so far.  Carbon dating is the process of observing the decay of the carbon present in an object to determine its age.\n\nLike any scientific property, there is always error.  The equation and theory models very close to reality but never exactly.  And there are so many other things that could've assisted in the decay which result in incorrect data.\n\nWhich is why whenever you want to make a scientific claim about certain fossils containing carbon for example, you will take many samples from various objects within a certain layer of the soil, then take the average age of them all, giving a rough estimate of the age of that particular layer of soil.\n\nIs carbon dating perfect?  No.  No scientific method is without errors.  But if done intelligently it can give reliable statistics about the age of objects.\n\nMost of the people who are wholly against carbon dating point out errors and flaws with it that any reasonable scientist is fully aware of and they pretend that it's a profound problem which invalidates the whole process.  The majority of Carbon Dating critics are coming from the religious front, who oppose it because it disproves their beliefs.\n\nUltimately though, if done by a careful scientist with lots of samples, then averaged, carbon dating is generally reliable.
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It is quite reliable when properly applied.  It can't be trusted when:\n\n(1) it is applied so far in the past that it is extreme extrapolation of limited data.\n\n(2) the sample and its food source were radiation-protected.\n\n(3) the sample came from a situation or time where the C14/C12 ratio was different from what it is today, or is unknown.\n\nFor all these reasons, the farther back in time you try to read, the less reliable the dating.
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Chronicling the duration of geologic eras via the strata of earth formations.
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lol brave attempt, but ulitmately it doesn't matter how much scientific proof you can offer a creationist their blind faith won't accept it.\n\ncarbon dating may not be an exact science but it's a darned sight more accurate than believing in several unrealated documents compiled 100's of years after the events they 'record' by a roman emporer with an agenda..\n\nit's all fairly accademic to discuss the bible or creationism (or any religion) on somewhere like yahoo, you'll never change someones beliefs and at the end of the day, what does it matter. I wish i could believe in a god,it might make living feel slightly more purposeful...
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Stratigraphic columns give the geologic history of an area. Faults & folding give a tectonic history. By examining the types of rocks that have been deposited, intruded, folded, turned over, etc. geologists have a "relative" idea (pun intended) of the workings of the earth in the past.\n\nI spend about a week teaching my 9th grade earth science students about stratigraphy. They love figuring out strat cross-sections. For them it's like doing a puzzle.