Although reasonably accurate numerical The primary problem in assigning numerical dates to units of time is the fact that not all rocks can be dated by radiometric methods. Recall that for a radiometric date to be useful, all minerals in the rock must have formed at about the same time. dates have been worked out for the 11.19), the task is not without difficulty. For this reason, radioactive isotopes can be used to determine when minerals in an igneous rock crystallized and when pressure and heat created new minerals in a metamorphic rock. However, samples of sedimentary rock can only rarely be dated directly by radiometric means. A sedimentary rock may include particles that contain radioactive isotopes, but the rock's age cannot be accurately determined because the grains making up the rock are not the same age as the rock in which they occur Rather, the sediments have been weathered from rocks of diverse ages(Figure 11.20) Radiometric dates obtained from metamorphic rocks may also be difficult to interpret because the age of a particular mineral in a metamorphic rock does not necessarily represent the time when the rock initially formed. Instead, the date may indicate any one of a number of subsequent metamorphic phases. lf samples of sedimentary rocks rarely yield reliable radio metric ages, how can numerical dates be assigned to sedimentary layers? Usually the geologist must relate them to datable igneous masses, as in Figure 1121. In this example, radiometric daring has determined the ages of the volcanic ash bed within the Morrison Formation and the dike cutting the Mancos Shale and Mesaverde Formation. The sedimentary beds below the ash are obviously older than the ash and all the layers above the ash are younger(principle of superposition). The dike is younger than the Mancos Shale and the Mesaverde Formation but older than the Wasatch Formation because the dike does not intrude the Tertiary rocks(cross-cutting relationships). From this kind of evidence, geologists estimate that a part of the Morrison Formation was deposited about 160 million years ago, as indicated by the ash bed. Furthermore, they conclude that the Tertiary period began after the intrusion of the dike, 66 million years ago. This is one example of literally thousands that illustrates how datable materials are used to bracket the various episodes in Earth history within specific time periods. It shows the necessity of combining laboratory dating methods with field observations of rocks.