(Q010) To calculate the numerical age of a fossil specimen that you believe dates to about 2 mya, which of the following methods would you choose?

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The question asks which dating method would be appropriate for a fossil specimen dating around 2 million years ago (mya).
Option 1: thermoluminescence dating. This method is typically used for ceramics and heated minerals, not for dating ancient fossils directly; it’s not well-suited for a 2 mya age range.
Option 2: dendrochronology. Tree-ring dating is excellent for calibrating relatively recent timescales, generally up to a few tens of thousands of years, but it cannot be applied to fossils or deep geological times.
Option 3: carbon-14 dating. Carbon-14 is useful for dating organic material up to about 50,000 years old at most; beyond that, the radioactive signal has decayed too much to yield reliable results, so it cannot date a 2 mya specimen.
Option 4: fission track dating. This technique leverages natural fission tracks in minerals like apatite or zircon and can extend over millions of years, making it appropriate for dating fossils on the order of 2 mya and older. It is commonly used in paleoanthropology and geology for such timescales.
In sum, only fission track dating aligns with the ~2 mya timescale, while the other methods are either inapplicable or unreliable for that age range.

ANTH-101-03 CH 08 REVIEW QUIZ

(Q010) To calculate the numerical age of a fossil specimen that you believe dates to about 2 mya, which of the following methods would you choose?

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