What is the difference between Absolute Dating & Relative Dating?
Relative dating and absolute dating can be used to determine the age of artifacts or materials in geology. They have different approaches and produce distinct results. (Relative dating, 2021). It is important to understand the differences and how they work. Absolute dating allows scientists to establish the age of an object or material. It uses radiometric dating methods such as carbon dating and potassium-argon dating. This method is based upon the rate at which radioactive radioisotopes in the material decay. Radiometric dating, 2021, allows you to determine the material’s age by measuring how much radioactive isotope remains. Carbon-14 dating can be used, for instance, to calculate the age of organic materials less than 50,000 year old. The use of relative dating, which is an analysis of the material’s age and comparing it with other artifacts or materials of similar age to assess its age, allows you to estimate its age. It is used to calculate the relative age between materials within a sequence.