Can somebody explain this to me please?

[6ftunder]

I literally don't understand how fossils relate to timelines. For instance how can scientists say that we need to dig 30m (example) down to look back 65 million years?

Where did all the mud come from to bury the dinosaur bones down that deep?

 

[wljourney]

Someone had to shovel all of that dirt on top of the dinosaurs. Rough jobs back in those days…

 

[Alex6216]

I literally don't understand how fossils relate to timelines. For instance how can scientists say that we need to dig 30m (example) down to look back 65 million years?

Where did all the mud come from to bury the dinosaur bones down that deep?

I'm not a smart scientist but I believe the bones get buried via a number of things, most of the time it's via tectonic plates pushing on each other which causes the dirt to sink, pushing everything in it underground.
Volcanoes erupting then cooling down and mudslides also bury the fossils

 

[Al_stargate]

Dirt is just dead matter from everything that grew and crawled on it. Basically compost. 1 meter of soil equals to thousands and thousands of years, not sure, that's the scientists know how long ago something was. Beneath dirt/soil, there is rock and those as well correspond to certain periods in eaths history, I guess.

 

[Feeding Pigeons]

Alright, so, prepare for a rough explanation of how fossils fit into a timeline.

The molecules that make up everything physical are held together by a force, this decays over time. The molecules come apart.

During our time here on earth, we have watched objects on the molecular level decay. We took note of how long it takes for a certain amount of decay to happen.

We extrapolated that observation to older things, like fossils. We make an estimation on how long the fossil has existed by how much its molecules look decayed.

That is how we are able to say "This fossil is ten thousand years old".

 

[onlyanimalsaregood]

 

[6ftunder]

Alright, so, prepare for a rough explanation of how fossils fit into a timeline.

The molecules that make up everything physical are held together by a force, this decays over time. The molecules come apart.

During our time here on earth, we have watched objects on the molecular level decay. We took note of how long it takes for a certain amount of decay to happen.

We extrapolated that observation to older things, like fossils. We make an estimation on how long the fossil has existed by how much its molecules look decayed.

That is how we are able to say "This fossil is ten thousand years old".

Yeah I understand how radio carbon dating works, but not how everything gets buried.
It's as though soil is being added to the Earth from nowhere over millions of years because if the soil that buried a dinosaur came from somewhere else on Earth, it would form a really deep hole.

 

[Feeding Pigeons]

Yeah I understand how radio carbon dating works, but not how everything gets buried.
It's as though soil is being added to the Earth from nowhere over millions of years because if the soil that buried a dinosaur came from somewhere else on Earth, it would form a really deep hole.

Oh.

Well damn, I wasted my mini lecture.

 

[Al Cappella]

Yeah I understand how radio carbon dating works, but not how everything gets buried.
It's as though soil is being added to the Earth from nowhere over millions of years because if the soil that buried a dinosaur came from somewhere else on Earth, it would form a really deep hole.

There are a number of things that cause dirt & rock layering—and remember, this happens over millions of years. 1) volcanic activity. 2) oceans/lakes/rivers. Water ways are one of the main ways that dirt forms layers over the years. Stuff gets washed down from mountains, deposited along river bottoms, etc. 3) glaciers moving around. Ice ages have come and gone, each depositing crap. 4) plate tectonics—giant slabs of concrete being shoved on top of each other. 5) aliens saying "watch this!"

 

[motel rooms]

Someone had to shovel all of that dirt on top of the dinosaurs.

I just snapped my fingers, my child.