The age of the Earth has been established through the use of ________, in which scientists test for the ________ of parent and daughter elements in a given sample of rock or other material.
Adv.
It is well understood from the theories of evolution that, evolution occurs very slowly over time and it could even take billions of years. Due to advancements in scientific techniques, the age of an object can be easily identified. The age of objects can be determined by calculating the rate of decay of radioactive elements restrained in them.
This technique is called radiometric dating. Through radiometric dating, it has been found that found that Earth is billion years old.
Eruption of a volcano results in flow of lava to the nearby areas. When the lava comes in contact with river or sea water, it results in the formation of volcanic rocks. Apart from lava, these volcanic rocks also contain numerous elements from the surroundings. Few of such elements would be radioactive elements. It is important to note that these radioactive elements decay over time.
When a radioactive element gets decayed, it gets transformed to another element. However, this transformation of the parent element into the daughter element does not occur randomly. It takes place at a fixed time period. Also, when transformation occurs, the original parent element is trapped inside the rock. By evaluating the ratio of a parent element to the daughter element in a rock, the age of the rock can be calculated.
Thus, in radiometric dating, the proportion of parent element is compared with the proportion of daughter element. It is important to note that due to advancement in science; around radioactive techniques with different radioactive isotopes are available.
Hence, the answers are radiometric dating and ratio.