AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -To establish the age of a rock or a fossil, researchers use some type of clock to determine the date it was formed. Geologists commonly use radiometric dating methods, based on the natural radioactive decay of certain elements such as potassium and carbon, as reliable clocks to date ancient events.

Detailed explanation-2: -To determine the ages in years of Earth materials and the timing of geologic events such as exhumation and subduction, geologists utilize the process of radiometric decay.

Detailed explanation-3: -Absolute Time Definition This measurement of age is calculated by measuring the occurrence of a short-life radioactive element or a long-life radioactive element with its decay product. These elements were trapped inside the rocks at the time when the rock was formed.

Detailed explanation-4: -Since then the 20th century, the term absolute dating has become almost exclusively tied to the measurement of the radioactive decay of atoms in a sample. Methods of Dating: Relative dating is a technique used by scientists to compare the strata where the fossil was found to others above and below it.

Detailed explanation-5: -The rate of decay of a radioactive isotope is measured in terms of its half-life, or the amount of time required for a material to decrease by one-half. Scientists can use this information to calculate the absolute age of an object containing a particular radioactive isotope such as carbon-14.