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Introduction & Top Questions
General considerations
- Distinctions between relative-age and absolute-age measurements
- The global tectonic rock cycle
- Determination of sequence
- Correlation
  - Principles and techniques
  - Geologic column and its associated time scale
Absolute dating
- Principles of isotopic dating
- Evaluation and presentation schemes in dating
  - Origin of radioactive elements used
  - The isochron method
  - Analysis of separated minerals
  - Model ages
  - Multiple ages for a single rock: the thermal effect
- Instruments and procedures
  - Use of mass spectrometers
  - Technical advances
- Major methods of isotopic dating
  - Uranium–lead method
    - Double uranium-lead chronometers
    - Importance of zircon in uranium-lead dating
  - Rubidium–strontium method
    - Dating simple igneous rocks
    - Dating minerals
    - Dating metamorphic rocks
  - Samarium–neodymium method
  - Rhenium–osmium method
  - Potassium–argon methods
  - Fission-track dating
  - Carbon-14 dating and other cosmogenic methods
  - Uranium-series disequilibrium dating
    - Thorium-230 dating
    - Lead-210 dating
Principal cosmogenic and uranium-thorium series radioisotopes

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images & Videos

Morrison Formation

Learn how the radiometric rubidium-strontium dating technique is used to determine the age of rock particles

crustal generation and destruction

Steno's four laws of stratigraphy

Grand Canyon rock layering

isochron diagram

titanite discordia

For Students

Morrison Formation

dating: Related Content

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Photos and Videos

Morrison Formation

crustal generation and destruction

Steno's four laws of stratigraphy

Grand Canyon rock layering

isochron diagram

titanite discordia

Learn how the radiometric rubidium-strontium dating technique is used to determine the age of rock particles

See All Videos and Images →

Topics

varve analysis Blytt–Sernander system absolute dating cross dating relative dating sequence determination stratigraphic correlation tephrochronology obsidian–hydration–rind dating fluorine dating excavation fossil record index fossil A Journey Through Time Since the Precambrian Egyptology ley lines What Is the Difference Between Archaeology and Paleontology?

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Key People

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Loren Eiseley

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Sir Flinders Petrie, detail of an oil painting by George Frederic Watts, 1900; in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Sir Flinders Petrie

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Édouard Lartet

French geologist and archaeologist

Boucher de Perthes, Jacques

Jacques Boucher de Perthes

French archaeologist

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Esther Boise Van Deman

American archaeologist

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Per Teodor Cleve

Swedish chemist