Method of dating that makes use of the ratio of the amount of the radioactive isotope lead-210 to that of the stable isotope lead-206. The method has been applied to the ores of uranium. Lead-210 dating is particularly useful for determining the ages of relatively recent marine sediments and so has been applied to studies concerned with the impact of human activity on the aquatic environment
or common-lead dating Method of dating very old rocks by means of the amount of common lead they contain. Common lead is any lead from a rock or mineral that contains a large amount of lead and a small amount of the radioactive precursors of lead (i.e., the isotopes uranium-235, uranium-238, and thorium-232). By this method, the age of the Earth has been estimated to be 4.6 billion years. This figure is in good agreement with the age of meteorites and the age of the Moon as determined independently