Activity

Fossil correlation

In this activity, students date fossils from one site by matching them to fossils already dated somewhere else. They use real data from Mangahouanga, made famous by paleontologist Joan Wiffen.

Joan Wiffen and her fossils

Joan Wiffen and colleagues were famous for finding fossils at Mangahouanga Stream, in north-west Hawke’s Bay. Dr James Crampton, paleontologist at GNS Science, outlines some of the marine reptiles and dinosaur fossils they found. He explains why dinosaur fossils are so rare in New Zealand and how hard they are to extract from the rock.

Rights: University of Waikato

By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

  • understand how the age of fossils in one rock can be obtained using dates from fossils in a different place

  • understand that most fossils can only be dated to a time range, not a precise date

  • realise that microscopic fossils can be as important as big ones

  • read information from scientific charts and share their results with others.

Cretaceous creatures

Dr James Crampton takes you inside the National Paleontology Collection at GNS Science to see some of the dinosaur and marine reptile fossils found by Joan Wiffen at Mangahouanga Stream. He shows a mosasaur skull, plesiosaur paddle and skull, pterosaur wing bone and vertebrae from two dinosaurs.

Point of interest: The diagrams of dinosaurs within this video clip are a representation of what scientists believe these creatures might have looked like.

Rights: © Copyright. University of Waikato. All Rights Reserved.

Download the Word file (see link below) for:

  • introduction/background notes

  • what you need

  • what to do

  • student worksheets.

Related content

The article Date a dinosaur and the video clip Cretaceous creatures look at the fossils at Mangahouanga and how they have been dated.

Activity idea

Fossil correlation is one method of absolute dating. This interactive explains four methods of absolute dating.

Published:18 May 2011