Radiometric dating does not measure the age of an individual atom. It is a measure of the age of a quantity of atoms—a statistic. As with any statistical measure, its values may deviate around an average (sampling error, Section 1.8). Imagine that one sample of rock is dated ten different ways. Nine of the tests yield an age close to 225,000 years. One test yields an age of 3.2 million years. Do the nine consistent results imply that the one that deviates is incorrect, or does the one odd result invalidate the nine that are consistent?

Radiometric dating does not measure the age of an individual atom. It is a measure of the age of a quantity of atoms—a statistic. As with any statistical measure, its values may deviate around an average (sampling error, Section 1.8). Imagine that one sample of rock is dated ten different ways. Nine of the tests yield an age close to 225,000 years. One test yields an age of 3.2 million years. Do the nine consistent results imply that the one that deviates is incorrect, or does the one odd result invalidate the nine that are consistent?

Biology Today and Tomorrow without Physiology (MindTap Course List)

5th Edition

ISBN:9781305117396

Author:Cecie Starr, Christine Evers, Lisa Starr

Publisher:Cecie Starr, Christine Evers, Lisa Starr

Chapter11: Evidence Of Evolution

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 2CT

See similar textbooks

Similar questions

Which parent isotope is most useful for dating samples that are greater than 100 million years old? a potassium-40 b lead-206 c argon-40 d uranium-238
Which method is used to assign numerical ages to events or materials? absolute dating half-life dating isotope dating relative dating
Which of these factors influences the radioactive decay measured by radiometric dating? Temperature Half-life Pressure Chemical bonding state
If the half-life of a radioisotope is 20,000 years, then a sample in which three-quarters of that radioisotope has decayed is _______ years old. a. 15,000 b. 26,667 c. 30,000 d. 40,000
Which item is best dated using the potassium-argon (K-Ar) method? Group of answer choices A: Cave layers in South Africa B: stone tools C: Ancient dinosaur bones D: organic materials E: Lava flows found in the Olduvai Gorge
55: Radiometric dating ... Group of answer choices A: is based on the scientific observation that unstable “parent” isotopes decay into more stable “daughter” isotopes at a constant rate B: involves some event that initiates a radiometric clock, such as when a plant or animal dies (radiocarbon). C: has helped us determine that the Earth is roughly 4.54 billion years old. D: provides an accurate means of determining the age of materials that are very old. E: All of these answers are true
Radiometric dating is a technique used to determine the age of rocks. Geologists have used this technique to determine that: A. The universe started with the "Big Bang." B. Earth is about 6.2 trillion years old, and life appeared on Earth about 4.9 trillion years ago. C. Earth is about 4.6 billion years old, and life appeared on Earth about 4.1 billion years ago. D. Earth is about 4.6 million years old, and life appeared on Earth about 4.4 million years ago. E. Earth is about 6.2 thousand years old, and life appeared on Earth about 6 thousand years ago.
Which one of two radiometric dating methods that we studied in our course is useful for the identification of absolute age of buried organic remnants (bones, charcoal, woods)? Can you please help me with this question
Volcanic ash can be used to date fossil finds because each time it is expelled by an eruption it has the same relative proportions of radioactive isotopes. True or False
44: All of the following materials can be radiocarbon dated except Group of answer choices A: Seeds B: Bones C: Wood D: Stones E: Charcoal
Part 1. Stratigraphic Dating: A Café Scene Relative dating methods establish the date of something as older or younger than something else rather than anchoring its age to an absolute, scaled timeline, as in absolute dating. So, we determine the sequence of at least two things (two events, two deposits, etc.) and establish what happened first, what happened next, and so on. In archaeology, relative dating relies on stratigraphy—what material is located above or below something else. The Law of Superposition tells us that material positioned underneath something else is usually older and material overlying a deposit is younger than the deposit, unless the layers have been disturbed. The photos that you will be shown depict a collection of items on a table: a cup, saucer, newspaper, and tickets. Imagine that these items are part of a single context such as a layer in an excavation and you want to determine whether they were deposited all at once as a single event or one after the other…
Radiometric dating uses the decay of to to determine how old fossils of biological material are using the rate of decay. Group of answer choices 14C, 12C 14N, 12C 12C, 14N 14C, 14N