How are absolute dating and relative dating alike?

Answer 1

Short Answer:

Both relative dating and absolute dating are tools used to give temporal characteristics to a sequence of events. Both are attempting to get information on the history of events.

Tools like radiometric dating allow some samples to be assigned a certain age to within some accuracy. Assigning a certain age or date is a form of absolute dating.

Relative dating is a scientific process of evaluation used to determine the relative order of past events, but does not determine the absolute age of an object.

Long Answer:

Sciences such as geology, Paleontology and archeology are very interested in identifying the age of objects found and these scientists sometimes use either relative dating or absolute dating to characterize the age of the objects they study.

Before radiometric dating it was difficult to determine the actual age of an object. Radiometric dating, based on known rates of decay of radioactive isotopes in objects, allows a specific age of an object to be determined to some degree of accuracy.

Relative dating is a scientific process of evaluation used to determine the relative order of past events, but does not determine the absolute age of an object. The circumstances of the object may allow one to say that one object is older than another without being able to assign a particular age to the objects.

For example:

If an archaeologist is studying past civilizations, the archaeologist may be able to say that in a particular location the ruins of once civilization were found to have been build on another and so the layers unearthed in an excavation convey the sequence of historical occupations without revealing the actual dates.

Similarly for paleontologists who find layers of fossils. By deducing which fossils are formed in the sequence of time, the periods when the particular fossilized entities existed can be arranged in order without the actual dates of when the fossils were laid down.

For geologists, it is similar. Looking at how rock formations are structured, a geologist may be able to say which rock was developed in which layer in a particular order but not be able to determine that actual geologic age of the layers.