To date a Rock layer?

yo use index fossils right? well how do u date index fossils. becauseif u saye u date index fossils by he rock layer thats not correct. its circular reasoning that makes no sense. how are you going to date each item by each other.





and when u carbon date things, they require u to tell them what layer u found the rock sample and what were the index fossils.. so how will thatt work.

To date a Rock layer?
No, that's not the way it works.


If you want to carbon date the fossils, you'll get the absolute age of the fossils which you then applied to the bed where the fossils are found.


The next time you find the same fossils within rock layers at other locations, you can determine the age of the layers.


In simpler cases and most practical use, index fossils are used to determine the relative age instead of the absolute age.
Reply:There is a lot of "relative" dating in the scientific community. Carbon dating has so many variables and can be influenced by so many external factors that it cannot be trusted. The isotope ratios can be modified by simple things like water leaching through it. That is, more could be washed in or washed out. A mammoth was tested and there were thousand of years difference from different parts of the creature.





Check out my source for some of the complexities of the problem.

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