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Darwin’s times. How was Darwin able to estimate the ages of his fossils finds?

4 Responses to “Darwin’s times. How was Darwin able to estimate the ages of his fossils finds?”

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  Geri42 says:

  2010/06/30 at 2:54 pm

  He had nothing to estimate the ages of his fossils. That’s why it was called, “a theory.” It’s all hype.

   
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  bravozulu says:

  2010/07/01 at 7:58 am

  He found fossils of shellfish on the top of the Andes. He just happened to be there right after a large earthquake. He noticed the land had risen by the ocean because many of the shellfish were many feet above high tide mark. He figured by the rarity of earthquakes and the height of the Andes that it must have been millions or years to get that high. He greatly underestimated the time but he was one of the first to notice how earthquakes cause mountains to rise. He also noticed that many of the fossils were apparently of extinct animals so he could tell they were very old. How deeply buried was probably usually his best estimate.

   
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  spiderking88 says:

  2010/07/01 at 11:57 am

  he had a THEORY…there is no basis in fact….it is only an hypothesis. there r current definite truths that prove it to be ONLY that.

   
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  username_hidden says:

  2010/07/04 at 7:41 pm

  There was no reliable means of attributing an absolute date to fossils in Darwins time. But many of the basic principles of geology had already been worked out, allowing fossils to be dtaed in a relative way (ie younger than this specimine but older than that one). There was also sufficient evidence to suggest that the age of the earth would have to be measured in millions of years rather than hundreds or thousands.

  The relative dating of fossils, according to the strata in which they occurred, was pioneered by William Smith.
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  The extreme age of the earth was deduced from geological unconformaties, as discovered by James Hutton.