Geologists estimate that Earth is 4.6 billion years old. With such as large time line, dating very old materials becomes a process with errors that can get into the millions of years. One such tool to help narrow down the age of materials is relative dating.

The Facts

Relative dating is a method used to construct a time line by comparing one object to another, according to Science Clarified.

Misconceptions

The relative date of an object does not tell us a specific age in units of time, only an age relative to something else, such as Abraham Lincoln being born after George Washington, according to a University of Nevada--Las Vegas Geology 101 course.

Benefits

Relative dating is vitally important for helping determine the absolute age of an unknown object by placing items, such as rock formations, in a proper chronological order, according to Science Clarified.

Features

The major, unbreakable law of relative dating is the Law of Superposition. LOS says that the bottom layers of rock formed before the top layers, according to UNLV. Another principle, which is not always true, says that creatures evolve from simple to complex organisms and invertebrates to vertebrates.

Disadvantages

Relative dating often suffers from the low accuracy of some of its techniques, reports Quaternary Dating Methods." Relative bone dating, for example, has problems with chemical changes in bone over time that are not uniform.

Source:

Science Clarified

Univesity of Nevada--Las Vegas

"Quaternary Dating Methods;" Walker, Mike; 2005