AGSALDA, EJ R.

BS BIO-1
SYSTEMATICS LAB

WORKSHEET 4:

UNDERSTANDING THE GEOLOGIC TIME SCALE RELATIVE VS ABSOLUTE TIME

Introduction
By knowing the age of the rock that a fossil is found in, geologists can usually tell the age of the
Fossil. Sometimes they cannot give it an exact date, but they know that it is older or younger than
another fossil. Dating a fossil by saying it is older or younger than another fossil is called relative dating.
If the geologists know the exact age of a fossil, they usually express its age in millions of years ago (mya)
that it was formed. Dating a fossil by assigning it a specific age is called absolute dating.

Instructions
To practice this concept, make a relative time scale out of seven or eight events that have occurred in
your lifetime. For example, include important events such as your birth, something you did today,
startingkindergarten, and losing your first tooth. Remember, these events only show chronological
order, notexact dates. After making a relative time scale, assign dates to the events that you chose, so
that it is an absolute time scale.

The following is an example:

How does the creation of the geological time scale use both absolute and relative dating?

Scientist used relative dating to order the rock layers from oldest to youngest. In the process of
relative dating, scientists do not determine the exact age of a fossil but do learn which ones are older or
younger than others. They saw that the fossils in older rocks are different from the fossils in younger
rocks. For example, older rock layers contain only reptile fossils, but younger rock layers may also
contain mammal fossils. On the other hand, Ordering rock layers from oldest to youngest was a first step
in creating the geologic time scale. Scientist used absolute dating in order to measure the amounts of
radio active elements in different kinds of rocks.