Dating the Fossil Record

Each Unique Period of the Earth’s 4.6 billion year history left clues in the layers it left behind.

These layers reveal unique plants and animals from very different environments than ours.

These are your fossil samples from different strata or layers of the earth. Problem: Can you arrange these to figure out the order of layers from oldest to youngest?

We know that Sample 2 is the oldest because it is always found at the bottom layer when the scientists discovered it.

Use what you know about Superposition and Extinction to solve the Problem.

The principle of Superposition tells us that the older layers and organisms are at the bottom and newer, more recent, organisms are in the top layers.

Extinction is when there are no living members of a species left on Earth, so once the organism is extinct it will disappear from the face of the Earth and the fossil record.

For Discussion 1.From what you did so far, were you able to figure out the exact age of the fossil or layer? Why? 2.Which Fossil is the Youngest? Why

Here are some Radioactive dating results from the lab to add to your data table. Mya= Millions of Years Ago 28.5 mya 26.3 mya 30.2 mya14.2 mya 18.3 mya23.1 mya 17.6 mya 15.5 mya19.5 mya