Science fusion unit 4: Relative and Absolute Dating

Front

What is Relative Dating?

Back

Relative dating is a method used to determine the age of rocks and fossils in relation to one another, without providing a specific numerical age.

Front

What is Absolute Dating?

Back

Absolute dating is a method used to determine the exact age of a rock or fossil, often expressed in years, using techniques such as radiometric dating.

Front

What does the Law of Superposition state?

Back

The Law of Superposition states that in undisturbed sedimentary rock layers, the oldest layers are at the bottom and the youngest layers are at the top.

Front

What is the Principle of Cross-Cutting Relationships?

Back

The Principle of Cross-Cutting Relationships states that a fault or intrusion is younger than the rock layers it cuts through.

Front

Define Uniformitarianism.

Back

Uniformitarianism is the principle that geological processes occurring today are the same as those that occurred in the past, summarized as 'the present is the key to the past'.

Front

What is a Half-Life?

Back

A half-life is the time required for half of the parent isotope in a sample to decay into a daughter isotope.

Front

How much of the parent isotope remains after 1 Half-Life?

Back

50% of the parent isotope remains after 1 Half-Life.

Front

How much of the parent isotope remains after 2 Half-Lives?

Back

25% of the parent isotope remains after 2 Half-Lives.

Front

What is an Intrusion in geology?

Back

An intrusion is a body of igneous rock that forms when magma cools and solidifies beneath the Earth's surface.

Front

What is a Fault?

Back

A fault is a fracture or zone of fractures in the Earth's crust along which movement has occurred.