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Science — Third Preparatory

Science — Third Preparatory

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Unit 4 — Dating Planet Earth

Science — Third Preparatory

Unit 4 — Dating Planet Earth

🔍 In-Depth Explanations, Deductions & Core Concepts:

🔍 In-Depth Explanations, Deductions & Core Concepts:

Comparison aspectMain ideaKeywords
•
  • Why Carbon-14 (Radiocarbon) dating cannot be used to date dinosaur fossils or ancient granite rocks: Carbon-14 has a short half-life of 5
  • 730 years and can only reliably date organic carbonaceous remains up to ~50
  • 000 to 60
  • 000 years old. Dinosaur fossils are >66 million years old
  • where all detectable ¹⁴C has completely decayed away
CarbonRadiocarbondatingcannot
Significance of Unconformities in the geological record
  • An unconformity represents a prolonged period of missing time where rock deposition ceased and erosion stripped away previous layers
  • revealing structural breaks and tectonic gaps in Earth’s history
unconformityrepresentsprolongedperiod
How index fossils enable intercontinental correlation
  • If matching index fossils (e.g
  • trilobites
  • ammonites) are found in sedimentary beds in Egypt and South America
  • geologists conclude with certainty that both strata were deposited simultaneously during the exact same geological epoch
matchingtrilobitesammonitesfound
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