Relative Dating - Admission/Application Essay Example

Relative dating Relative dating is the scientific process of the determination of the relative sequence of past occurrences without mainly determining their actual age.Lithologies, superficial deposits, geological rocks and fossils can all be utilized to relate one statigraphic column to another. Before radiometric dating came into existence, which basically provided a way of absolute dating, in the start of twentieth century, geologists and archeologists were mostly reduced to only using relative dating methods to find out the age of geological occurrences.

Even though relative dating is only used to find out the occurrence of events sequentially, and not the time they occur, it still remains a very valuable method especially when studying materials which do not have radioactive isotopes. The most preferred style of relative dating in paleontology is by biostratigraphy and in most aspects more accurate. A summarized result of relative dating as found in geological period from seventeenth century to the early twentieth century resulted into a law called Superposition.

In 1800, a gentleman by the name of Smith William discovered an organized order of occurrence of fossils in layers of rock. This is while he was excavating, the Somerset Coal Canal in the southwest part of England. He discovered that fossils were found in a particular order in layers of rock. The more he excavated and surveyed, the more he discovered that similar patterns across England. He further discovered that particular animals were found in only particular layers and that they remained in similar layers all over England.

Due to this realization, William was able to find out the order in which the rocks were formed. He later published a map showing the geology of England (sixteen years later), which showed all the rocks of various geologic time zones.Principles of Relative DatingRelative dating, just like any other field has got certain principles which it plays along. These are as discussed below;Intrusive relationshipsThis principle is all about crosscutting intrusions. The following are examples of various types of intrusions; dikes, batholiths, laccoliths, sills and also stocks.

In the study of earth if an igneous intrusion penetrates through a layer of sedimentary formation, then it can always be determined that the sedimentary rock is older than the igneous intrusion.Components and inclusionsThis principle states that in sedimentary rocks, if there are inclusions in a formation, then these inclusions are older than the containing formation.UniformitarianismIt states that the geologic forces observed in play that change the Earth’s crust presently have operated in a similar way over geologic time.

The other principles include faunal succession, horizontality, lateral continuity and superposition.Work CitedThelma, Hancock. Relative Dating. Cambridge: Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie, 2008.