Earth History Webquest

1. Goto the following website and fill in the correct definitions for the following words:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/education/explorations/tours/geotime/gtpage1.html

A. Absolute age:
B. Law of Superposition:
C. Radiometric dating:

D. Relative age:

Also write down the answers to the questions at the end of the activity.

(1) Scientific evidence suggests that the Earth is:

(2) Evidence for past events in Earth's ancient history are provided by:
(3) The Law of Superposition allows us to determine:
(4) Radiometric dating allows us to determine:
(5) The divisions of time in the Geologic Time Scale represent:

Virtual Dating Isochron Lab

Ha Ha!!

Website: http://www.sciencecourseware.com/VirtualDating/files/1.0_ClocksInRocks.html

Page 1) What 2 things need to be done to determine the age of a mineral?

Page 2) What is the graph communicating?

Page 3) What are you able to do with this graph?

Page 4) How are these 4 graphs similar to and different from each other?
Page 5) What kinds of minerals can be dated using the Rb-Sr Isochron method?

What are the steps to this method?

Page 6) What does fresh mean?

Page 7) How is the rock sample prepared for the mass spec?

Page 8) What kind of data does the mass spec give geologists?

Page 9) What is an isochron?

At what point in time do all the mineral separates have the same amount of
daughter isotopes?
Page 10) At what point in time does the isochron have a slope value of zero?

Page 11) How does the slope of the isochron change as the rock gets older?

Page 12) How could you tell an older rock from a younger rock just by looking at their
isochrons?

Page 13) Why does mineral M3 move up to the left faster than mineral M2?

Page 14)

Sample Locality Age (Million years)

Granite Scottish Highlands
Gabbro Sudbury, Canada
Gneiss Greenland

What are 5 things you have learned about radiometric dating from this activity?