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How do scientist determine how old a fossil is or when the animal that made the fossil lived?
Wiki User
∙ 13y ago
Scientists often use many processes but one of the most common is called radio carbon dating, which involves examining the surrounding media the fossil is found in for traces of certain radioactive isotopes of carbon. These carbon isotopes possess what is called half life decay, meaning over a period of time, usually thousands to millions of years, the carbon emits half as much radiation as it did the previous period of time. So for example, if carbon-14 loses half its radiation every 10 years (I realize this is grossly inaccurate) then 10 years from now it'll be half as radioactive, 10 years from then it'll be 1/4, and so on and so forth. So if a fossil's media contains carbon-14 that's 1/8 as radioactive as recent carbon-14 then the fossil is around 30 years old ( I realize a fossil wouldn't be a fossil at only 30 years old.)
Wiki User
∙ 13y ago
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoBy radiocarbon dating they gauge the amount of carbon 14 still in the orginism
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Is a mark or shape in rock left by a plant or animal that lived iong ago?
The remains are known as a fossil.
The fossil record indicates that the earliest cells lived about?
According to the fossil record, the earliest cells lived about 3.5 billion years ago.
How do fossils help scientists learn what happin in the past?
Scientists can learn from a fossil of animal by its age, diet, and physical characteristics, depending on the condition of the fossil. For example, scientists would not be able to tell of a hominid was a new species or not if a few bones were missing, because of the fact that they could determine different or similar traits than other species of hominid.
Which is not a factor in a fossil organism being useful as an index fossil?
it must have lived through a long span of time
The fossil record refers to what?
It refers to organisms that lived in the past.
What is the rocky remains of a plant or animal that lived long ago?
a fossil
What is the oldest land animal?
The oldest land animal is the scorpion. It lived on the Gondwana supercontinent. It is a 350 million year old fossil.
Is a mark or shape in rock left by a plant or animal that lived iong ago?
The remains are known as a fossil.
How might a mold or cast of a fossil help scientist to interpret the type of EnviroNment it lived in?
It might be able to show what kind of organism lived in the past, how the organisms and the environment have changed over time.
Can fossils tell us how an animal died?
A fossil can reveal information about extinct animals such as where the animal lived, how long ago the animal lived, what kinds of foods the animal ate, and how the animal had adapted over time for survival.
What can a paleontologists tell from fossil footprints of a dinosaur?
Paleontologists can determine many things. By the number of toes, their shape, the type of claws, and the size of the footprints, researchers can determine what type of animal the footprint belonged to. By the distance between footprints and the depth of the footprints, they can find out the speed and weight of the animal. By the size of the footprint, they can determine the size of the animal. The footprints can also show us interesting things about an animal's gait, for example, that raptors held their sickle claws up off the ground or that pterosaurs walked on their wings and feet. The presence of many footprints of the same type of animal can reveal that a species lived in groups.
Did Tasmanian tigers travel in packs?
No. Scientific and fossil evidence indicates the Tasmanian tiger, or Thylacine, was a solitary animal that lived and hunted alone.
The years in which the scientist lived and worked?
history on the scientist schledin
What fossil records tell about seedless plant that lived on earth long ago?
What fossil records tell about seedless plants that lived on earth long ago?
Are preserved animal tracks index fossils?
According to the definition of "Index Fossils" the answer is no. The definition of an "Index Fossil" is - remains of an organism that lived in a particular geological age. While the track itself may indicate the age of sediment, it is not a fossil.
Who is the greatest scientist to have ever lived?
In my history book it had said that Sir Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist that ever lived.
What you can learn about stegosaurus by looking at its bones?
We can determine how big it was and what it looked like. We can determine what they ate. By knowing where the bones were found, we know when and where they lived. We can potentially figure out how they animal died. We can estimate how the animal probably moved in life. Those are just the basics.
