The science of absolute age dating is known as geochronology and the fundamental method of geochronology is called radiometric dating. Scholars and naturalists, understandably, have long been interested in knowing the absolute age of the Earth, as well as other important geological events.

What is absolute dating in earth and life science?

Geologists often need to know the age of material that they find. They use absolute dating methods, sometimes called numerical dating, to give rocks an actual date, or date range, in numbers of years. This is different to relative dating, which only puts geological events in time order.

What does absolute age mean in science?

Absolute age is the numeric age of a layer of rocks or fossils. Absolute age can be determined by using radiometric dating. The age of the fossil will be an age range between the ages of the two volcanic layers.

What is the characteristic of absolute dating?

Absolute dating provides a numerical age or range, in contrast with relative dating, which places events in order without any measure of the age between events.