Relative Dating vs. Absolute Dating

History as a subject stay intriguing as ever; everyone wants to know what happened in the past, how it happened and what was the sequence of the things that occurred. Knowing all this and establishing a proper scale for the events of past has always been difficult and the two terms involved here help in achieving the task. Relative and absolute dating have their main differences. The process of finding out the similar order of the events that occurred in the past become known as relative dating. The process of finding out the actual order of the events that happened in the past become known as absolute dating.

Comparison Chart

What is Relative Dating?

The process of finding out the similar order of the events that took place in the past become known as relative dating. Another way of looking at the term becomes the directive where the age of an object becomes important with relation to another one. Here, the actual age of that tool may not be useful, but the connection with the other and the history among them takes precedence. It becomes useful when the geologists work on different rocks and fossils, they make a chart where the relation of one rock with the other becomes apparent and hence, the complete set of information about them becomes available for analysis. Although it only helps with the knowledge that which event occurred after what, it does not tell the exact time or era when the event happened and therefore lags importance. At the same time, it has significance as people may be able to understand the order and then decode the era. The common request of an event of fossils in rock layers got found around 1800 by William Smith. While delving the Somerset Coal Canal in SW England, he concluded that fossils were dependably in a similar manner in the stone layers. As he proceeded with his occupation as a surveyor, he found similar examples crosswise over England. He discovered that they were in similar layers all over England. Because of that disclosure, Smith could perceive the request that the stones were framed. Sixteen years after his revelation, he distributed a topographical guide of England demonstrating the stones of various geologic time periods.

What is Absolute Dating?

The process of finding out the actual order of the events that occurred in the past become known as absolute dating. Another way to look at the variation here comes when we talk about the actual time when something happened. For example, we want to know when the tax payment was made last year, for that we need a proper date. One we have it, all the processes that happened after the payment and before the payment become apparent. It gets considered as the main way of solving some problem in the geological world but with the help of relative dating. In archaic exploration, outright dating is generally considering the physical, compound, and life properties of the materials of antiquities, structures, or different things that have been changed by people and by recorded relationship with materials with known dates (coins and recorded history). Strategies incorporate tree rings in timbers, radiocarbon dating of wood or bones, and caught charge dating techniques, for example, thermoluminescence dating of coated ceramics. Coins found in unearthing may have their creation date composed on them, or there might produce records depicting the coin and when it was utilized, permitting the site to get related to a logbook year. Once the sequence of events become known to the user, they also get some idea of which era something belongs to and therefore the mystery solves itself. The search for something only ends once the whole timeline becomes known.

Key Differences between Relative Dating and Absolute Dating

1. The process of finding out the similar order of the events that occurred in the past become known as relative dating. On the other hand, the process of finding out the actual order of the events that happened in the past become known as absolute dating.
2. Relative dating helps people in determining the sequence of events that occurred and ends up developing a timeline. On the other hand, absolute dating helps people in determining the sequence of events that took place during a range of years and with dates.
3. Absolute dating becomes the last step of the process, on the other hand, relative dating becomes the first phase of the process.
4. Relative dating helps with finding the absolute dating, on the other hand, relative dating does not depend on absolute dating.
5. For relative dating, the layer of rocks becomes one example where the top rock is the newest one, and the bottom rock stays the oldest. On the other hand, absolute dating the layer of rocks as an example states that each rock gets explained based on the times or origin and not the location.
6. Relative dating becomes a comparison between two or more times, whereas absolute dating becomes a linkage between two or more times.