Define relative age dating

Relative dating is used to arrange geological events, and the rocks they leave behind, in a sequence. The method of reading the order is called stratigraphy layers of rock are called strata. Relative dating does not provide actual numerical dates for the rocks. Next time you find a cliff or road cutting with lots of rock strata, try working out the age order using some simple principles:. Fossils are important for working out the relative ages of sedimentary rocks.

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Absolute age dating — 3. Geological time scale — 4. Geological maps. It may surprise you to learn that geologists were able to determine much of the history of the Earth and its life without knowing anything about the actual ages of the rocks that they studied. Through use of absolute age dating techniques which were developed during the 20th century; see Section 2 , they were able to later assign dates in years before the preset to important events in Earth's history.

The Principle of Superposition tells us that deeper layers of rock are older than shallower layers Relative dating utilizes six fundamental principles to determine the relative age of a formation or event. This follows due to the fact that sedimentary rock is produced from the gradual accumulation of sediment on the surface. Therefore newer sediment is continually deposited on top of previously deposited or older sediment. In other words, as sediment fills a depositional basins we would expect the upper most surface of the sediment to be parallel to the horizon.