Question

brief information about geological dating

Answer 1

For centuries people have argued about the age of the Earth; only recently has it been possible to come close to achieving reliable estimates. In the 19th century some geologists realized that the vast thicknesses of sedimentary rocks meant that the Earth must be at least hundreds of millions of years old. Charles Darwin reinforced this idea by pointing to the time that must have been required for the EVOLUTION of advanced life from primitive forms.
On the other hand, the great physicist Lord Kelvin vehemently objected and suggested that the Earth might only be a few tens of millions of years old, based on his calculations of its cooling history. These discussions were rendered obsolete by the discovery of radioactivity in 1896 by the French physicist Henri Becquerel. The existence of radioactivities of various kinds in rocks has enabled earth scientists to determine the age of the Earth, the moon, meteorites, mountain chains and ocean basins, and to draw up a reasonably accurate time scale of evolution. It has even been possible to work out a time scale of the reversals of the Earth's magnetic field. This "radiometric" approach has superseded all other techniques for determining absolute ages