Compare and Contrast Relative Age Dating Radiometric Dating What Strengths Limitations

Radiometric Dating and Relative Age Dating

Dating fossils

It has been a kind of grey area for many how scientists and archeologists determine the age of recoveries they make from ancient sites. The moment this question is asked, it brings on board a number of processes among them radiometric dating and relative age dating. In the process of comparing and contrasting these two processes, this paper compares and contrasts these two processes as well as highlighting their strengths and weaknesses where applicable.

Radiometric dating which is commonly known as radioactive dating is a method used to estimate the age of materials like rocks mostly based on a contrast among the pragmatic profusion of a naturally occurring radioactive isotope as well as its putrefy products by the use of decompose rates. Radiometric dating relies on three fundamental rules in addition to a number of critical assumptions. It is important to note that all the rules are similar in every case while assumptions vary for every method. (Nic, M.; Jirat, J.; Kosata, B., eds, 2006). On the other hand, relative age dating has been largely defined as the science of shaping the comparative order of precedent events without inevitably determining their supreme age. Despite the fact that relative dating can simply determine the chronological order in which a number of proceedings occurred and not when they transpire, it still remains a valuable modus operandi particularly in materials missing radioactive.

In comparing and contrasting these two techniques, we find that radiometric is more precise as compared to relative dating in that in using radiometric dating you tend to get numeric outcome like finding a rock to be 240 million years while in relative dating, the use of clues to estimate the age of a particular material is evident. For example, you can assume that the rock is Jurassic when it comes to age if that particular rock is in a layer that is flanked by Triassic and Cretaceous rock layer.

It can also be said that relative dating is more qualitative as it is based on the geological model of superposition while radiometric dating is quantitative in a way as it is based on innate radioactivity of essentials contained in fossils and rocks. The use of a recognized decay rate known as half-life in comparing the ratio of naturally occurring radioactive isotope as well as its decay products is evident in radiometric, (Bowman, S. 1990).

Advantages

Relative dating has been widely seen as a cheaper method which is easy to use and this made it popular among the geologists for a number of purposes. With individual kind, it is possible for a rock's age to be narrowed by geologists, frequently to within a million years hence saves time. In relative dating, the artifacts can be positioned in order, but needs exterior information to establish the end of the sequence which is older and younger while in radiometric dating we see the use of annual cycles like celendrical- historic accounts as well as Dendrochronology which is the quantity of disparity in the development as well as patterns of both thick as well as thin tree rings.

Radiometric dating is in a position to date materials without interfering with them, it also has numerous methods to pick from and radiometric dating also has the ability to procure a moderately precise age of materials that are millions or even billions of years old. It is clear that radiometric depends on the principal that the isotope has maintained in the material since its existence.

Limitations