How can old footprints (>million years) be dated?

Subject: How can old footprints (>million years) be dated?

Date: Tue Nov 23 09:29:15 1999
Posted by David K. Jung
Grade level: grad (science) School: glaxowellcome
City: research triangle park State/Province: NC Country: USA
Area of science: Earth Sciences
ID: 943367355.Es

Message:


I was watching a show (about the book "The Aquatic Ape") in which 
scientists found footprints from an evolutionary intermediate of man and 
claimed that these footprints indicated bipedalism.  They then stated that 
the footprints were dated at around 4 million years ago or so (I'm 
guessing at this number, but it was a long time ago).  How did they 
determine this?

Re: How can old footprints (>million years) be dated?

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