Fossils Through Geologic Time

stratigraphic-chart-fossils.jpg (474×490)

Stratigraphic timescale. Picture: Ray Troll

How can we determine the age of a fossil?

37 Responses

  1. david says:

    there is no good way to do so

  2. Amadeo says:

    I claim that there is no absolute way to determine the age of fossils. My evidence is that the 2 ways I know people date them have large flaws, dating based off of how deep in the ground they are can be wrong because natural disasters like floods, mudslides, earthquakes and tsunamis can corrupt the data. Radiometric dating can be corrupted by materials going in or out of the fossil and by the fact that we can’t know how much of the element we are measuring there was in the fossil when it was buried.

  3. Raven says:

    I’m not exactly sure how I would be able to determine the age of a fossil by myself because that would take a lot of time and also determining how much decay has happened to the fossil and what is around the fossil so there is no real good way to determine it at least any that I know of.

  4. Damian says:

    I claim that the way people determine the age of fossils could be false. My evidence is because many things could happen to and around the fossil. Some things are that sediment on top of the fossil could be washed away from wind erosion or a flood, the fossil could be dug up, dropped and sediment could build up again. Many things could happen so there could be no way of telling how old a fossil is.

  5. Megan says:

    I am not sure how we can determined the age of a fossil. I think we can do that by seeing how deep it was in the ground.

  6. Isabelle says:

    I’m not sure how to tell the age of a fossil because it would take a lot of time to do that by myself.

  7. Dante says:

    There might be a way you can find the age of a fossil but i don’t how to find it.

  8. alex says:

    Well, I looked up How can we determine the age of a fossil so the question and well I got that they use a special diagram and at the end, it also said there is no real way so I don’t know what to believe.

  9. neal says:

    You can find the age of a fossils by how much minerals it has been on it or by the way it looks or how rough it is. This will tell how old it is because it won’t look like a rock as much and one that been there for billions of years.

  10. adrianna says:

    I’m not entirely sure how you could find the age of a fossil but you might be able to tell the age by seeing how deep it was in the ground. there probably is a way you could find the age but I don’t really now how you would find it.

  11. alec says:

    I am pretty sure that there is a way to know how old they are.By seeing how far the fossils are in the ground.

  12. olivia says:

    I’m not sure if there is a way to determine how old a fossil is, you could probably see like if its rotting or how it feels. Or maybe if that animal or whatever it is is still around.

  13. Nevaeh says:

    There may be a way by looking at all the minerals on it, or see how far they had to go down to find it along to find the age is looking at it very well and researching.

  14. Trey says:

    I don’t believe that there is a reliable way to determine the age of a fossil.
    After mt saint Helens erupted a team of scientists used carbon dating to determine the age of a rock. It said it was millions of years old but it was only a few weeks old!!

  15. Ryan says:

    You could see in the layering and the sediment.

  16. Carlos says:

    I believe that one way you can determine the age of the fossil is the way it looks like if it has cracks in it.

  17. Ryan says:

    You can find the age of a fossils by how much minerals it has been on it or by the way it looks or how rough it is. You can also see the age from the layering and sediment.

  18. Sarah says:

    I’m not sure but I think by the cracks or by the type of rock it was formed in. Also where it was found.

  19. IsAAc says:

    Yes, there is a good way to find how old a fossil is. A good way is through radiometric dating.

    • isaac says:

      I claim that there is a way of telling what the age of rocks are. My evidence is that scientists use a mass spectrometer, it is used to to measure how much uranium has been changed to lead. And by using simple math they can figure out how old that mineral first formed.

  20. Caden says:

    I only know of one way to tell how old a fossil is and that is carbon dating. I think it works by seeing how much carbon is left in the fossil.

    • Caden says:

      I claim that you can absolute date a fossil in years with Uranium. There is a method in which you use very sensitive measuring devices to measure the Uranium Lead difference. It works because once in a while an atom of Uranium will make an atom of Lead. Scientists can actually measure this decay rate and get a exact time in years of how old a fossil is. The downside is that the fossil has to contain Uranium.

  21. Duran says:

    I have no idea of any way to find out the age of a fossil.

  22. Vera says:

    Maybe we could determine the age by looking at the patterns on it or maybe just by how it looks. That’s my best guess, I don’t really know how else we could tell.

  23. Mason says:

    we can tell the age in many ways but I can only list a few, One way is by seeing how far the fossil is in the ground. Two how the fossil looks. That’s all I know!

  24. Makya says:

    I claim you can determine the age by how much mineral are on it how rough it is.This will look less like a rock.

  25. matt says:

    I think that to find that out you could check how much of the fossil is left. you could also see how deep it is.

    • matt says:

      I claim that you can use index fossils to help figure out how old a fossil is. my evidence is that scientists compare the layers fossils are into index fossils in the same layer. By doing this they know how old fossils are in that layer.

  26. cody says:

    We can see how old something is based on the fossil and it decomposed

  27. Jestin says:

    The fossils age can be determined by the materials they may be in or made of and you can tell how old an decaying animal is if it has no smell, like poop after time it will have no smell. Find out the age of the rocks around the fossil and they will say how old the fossil is.

  28. Kylie says:

    To find out the age of a fossil a scientist would look for clues or evidence for example, how deep down you had to dig.

  29. Hailey says:

    Well, I believe there are some ways to determine an age of fossils, but they’re unreliable. Some of the ways would be that as the fossil is deeper in the ground, it’s older. Also, you can tell by how many layers are inside the fossil and by carbon dating. However, these are the only ways I know how to determine the age of a fossil so far.

    • Hailey says:

      I claim you can tell the age of a fossil through stratigraphic correlation. My evidence is that through stratigraphic correlation, which is the process of matching up equivalent layers of rocks in different places, you can find the age of a fossil. The fossils that you use to compare would be index fossils, which are fossils that have bee widely distributed around the world and have only existed for short periods of geological time before they became extinct. They compare the index fossils layers, and whatever matches tell the age of the fossil.

  30. Vera says:

    I think that maybe we could find out the age by the patterns on it.

    • Vera says:

      I claim that we can find out the age of the fossil by how deep it is in mud or sand. And my evidence is that the deeper it is in the the mud the older it is. Thats how scientists test it. They even have there own scale.

  31. Mason says:

    We can tell the age of a fossil by how deep it is into the ground, Example- every 100m of ground would be 50yrs and if we find a fossil 50m in the ground the fossil would be 25yrs old!

  32. Ryan says:

    I claim that you can use index fossils to help figure out how old a fossil is. My evidence is it is used to measure how much uranium has been changed to lead.

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