Despite seeming like a relatively stable place, the Earth's surface has changed dramatically over the past 4.6 billion years. Mountains have been built and eroded, continents and oceans have moved ...

Radiometric dating, utilizing the predictable decay rates of radioactive isotopes within rocks and other materials, is the primary method for determining the age of geological samples. Multiple ...

Cosmogenic surface exposure dating determines how long the surface of a rock has been exposed to cosmic rays, which are high-energy particles that enter the Earth’s atmosphere from space. When cosmic ...

Image: Tiny crystals called zircons are used to date oceanic crust. A newly developed method that detects tiny bits of zircon in rock reliably predicts the age of ocean crust more than 99 percent of ...

These radioactive elements decay at known rates, effectively acting as a built-in clock that reveals precisely when the eggs were buried millions of years ago. This natural timekeeping mechanism has ...