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.
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.
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.
