Relative and absolute age dating of rocks

The same margin of error applies for younger fossiliferous rocks, making absolute dating comparable in precision to that attained using fossils.To achieve this precision, geochronologists have had to develop the ability to isolate certain high-quality minerals that can be shown to have remained closed to migration of the radioactive parent atoms they contain and the daughter atoms formed by radioactive decay over billions of years of geologic time.These include some that establish a relative chronology in which occurrences can be placed in the correct sequence relative to one another or to some known succession of events.

The results suggest that the present-day global tectonic scheme was operative in the distant past as well.Similarly, in geologic studies, vast quantities of information from widely spaced outcrops have to be integrated.Some method of correlating rock units must be found.Dating, in geology, determining a chronology or calendar of events in the history of Earth, using to a large degree the evidence of organic evolution in the sedimentary rocks accumulated through geologic time in marine and continental environments.To date past events, processes, formations, and fossil organisms, geologists employ a variety of techniques.