GEOLOGICAL TIME Dating the past

Learning Objective: To understand the methods used to date rocks in order to piece together the rock record

The study of geological time is known as

STRATIGRAPHY

It leads to an understanding of
The materials of the crust Their structure And past life

Geological study is an attempt to unravel the history of the Planet Earth piece by piece. And different people can have different interpretations as to what and how the events have happened.

First some basics

LAW OF SUPERPOSITION
Layers (stratum) of SEDIMENTARY ROCKS are
Deposited with the oldest rocks at the base And youngest rocks at the top of the sequence

Youngest rocks deposited later

Oldest rocks deposited first

LAW OF ORIGINAL HORIZONTALITY

Rocks are originally laid down horizontally

DIVISIONS OF GEOLOGICAL TIME

Our studies focus on the last 600,000,000 years of Earth history The are three main divisions:
CAENOZOIC MESOZOIC PALAEOZOIC younger

older

We can use basic words to subdivide these further Eg. Using the words LOWER (older) and UPPER (younger) So the Palaeozoic can be divided into 2 parts, the Lower Palaeozoic (the older portion) and the Upper Palaeozoic (the younger portion)

BEFORE THE PALAEOZOIC

Time called PRE-CAMBRIAN 4,600 million years (straight after the Big Bang) through to 570 million years ago Earliest known rocks 3,700 my old Earliest life BACTERIA (3,000 mya) Many impression and trace fossils (jellyfish like creatures) Primitive life forms evolved 1,000 mya

PRE-CAMBRIAN
Atmosphere had very little OXYGEN 1,000 mya Marine bacteria respired and produced O2 as a by-product Excess O2 escaped from the water to build up in the atmosphere and form the ozone layer

PRE-CAMBRIAN
Rocks from this time have not remained unaltered, they have been deformed many times by: folding, faulting, metamorphism, weathering and erosion

Trying to unravel their origins is difficult

ERAS
Time is conveniently grouped into ERAs CAENOZOIC (most recent time) MESOZOIC PALAEOZOIC (older time) Eras are divided into GEOLOGICAL PERIODS

For example
Lower Palaeozoic mya 395 SILURIAN

435
ORDOVICIAN 500

CAMBRIAN
570

Dating the past

When studying rocks it is useful to know when they formed. Geologists date rocks in two main ways: relative dating and radiometric dating.

RELATIVE DATING

Relative Dating
This does not give an age in millions of years but allows you to work out the order in which geological events took place.

When the Geological column was first worked out (nearly 150 years ago) it was done by relative dating. Rock and fossil types were simply arranged in the order in which they had been formed, without anyone knowing exactly how old each period was.

Relative Dating
For example: If a dolerite dyke is found cutting through a series of sedimentary rocks, then the dyke must be younger than the sediments

Alternatively, the relative ages of rocks can be worked out based on their fossil content.

CAMBRIAN
570-500 mya Cambrian life explosion (sudden appearance of life with hard parts preservable) Cambria ancient name for Wales Outcrops cover much of Wales Rocks mainly deepwater shales Fossils - TRILOBITES

CAMBRIAN FOSSILS

ORDOVICIAN
500-435 mya Named after the Ordovices (ancient British tribe of the Welsh Borderlands) Rock types dark shales (deep oceans floor sediments) Fossils mainly TRILOBITES and GRAPTOLITES

ORDOVICIAN FOSSILS

SILURIAN
435-395 mya Named after the Silures (an ancient British tribe from Shropshire area) Mainly thick mudstones and shales with massive limestones Rocks show the seas getting shallower (shelf seas) Fossils mainly BRACHIOPODS and TRILOBITES also GRAPTOLITES and CORALS

SILURIAN FOSSILS

End of the Lower Palaeozoic large changes Plate tectonics (destructive boundaries) brought the northern and southern parts of the British Isles together Forming the Caledonian mountain range And a change from marine strata to terrestrial ones

Brac hiop od

Gra ptoli te

Tril obit e

Eury pteri d

Hor n Cora l

Plac oder m

Crin oid

Gast ropo d

Fora mini fera

Pele cypo d

Am mon ite

Icth yosa ur

Shar ks toot h

Index Fossils

These are fossils that are used to define and identify geologic periods

The shorter the lifespan of a species, the more precisely different sediments can be correlated, and so rapidly evolving types of fossils are particularly valuable. The best index fossils are common, easy-toidentify at species level A broad distributionotherwise the likelihood of finding and recognizing one is minor.

ABSOLUTE DATING (Radioactive dating)

Radioactive Isotopes

"Clocks in Rocks"
A numerical (or "absolute") age is a specific number of years, like 150 million years ago. A relative age simply states whether one rock formation is older or younger than another formation. The Geologic Time Scale was originally laid out using relative dating principles.

Clocks in rocks
Radioactive "parent" isotopes spontaneously decay to form new "daughter"isotopes while releasing energy.

For example: Decay of the parent isotope Rb-87 (Rubidium) produces a stable daughter isotope, Sr-87 (Strontium), while releasing a beta particle (an electron from the nucleus). ("87" is the atomic mass number = protons + neutrons.) Similarly K-40 (Potassium) decays to Ar-40 (Argon) C-14 (Carbon) decays to N-14 (Nitrogen)

Get a half-life!
Radioactive Half-Life The time taken for half the number of unstable parent radioactive nuclei in a sample to decay to stable daughter elements.
Example:
40K

- 40Ar = 1,200 million years

Determine the half-lives for the other three isotopes

U-235 Half-life = 713 Million Years

U-238 Half-life =

Million Years

Rb-87 Half-life =

Billion Years

C-14 Half-life =

Years

Radiocarbon Dating

Radiocarbon

14C) (

Dating

This is a common form of dating. But has limited uses in terms of dating rocks

The radiocarbon dating method was developed in the 1940's by Nobel Prize winner Willard F. Libby. It evolved into the most powerful method of dating late Pleistocene and Holocene artefacts and geologic events up to about 50,000 years in age.

CARBON CYCLE
The 14C Decay Curve

Living organisms interact with the atmosphere - respiration and/or photosynthesis. The proportion of 14C in living organisms is thus the same as in the atmosphere.

After the death, 14C decays to 14N and is not replaced since the organism has stopped exchanging carbon with the atmosphere.

Suitability of

14Carbon

method

Suitable only if: used to date organic material - carbon based (peat, wood, bone etc.) less than 50,000 year old i.e. the recent past (after this length of time there is not enough 14C left to give reliable dates)