La geocronología es la ciencia que tiene como objetivo determinar la edad y sucesión cronológica de los acontecimientos geológicos en la historia de la Tierra. Se ocupa asimismo de establecer las unidades geocronológicas, unidades de tiempo discretas, continuas y sucesivas que proporcionan una escala temporal que cubre toda la historia de la Tierra. La rama de la geocronología que se ocupa de las edades absolutas (medición cuantitativa del tiempo) es la Geocronometría, siempre con un cierto grado de incertidumbre inherente a los métodos usados, que son variados y multidisciplinares.

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Geochronology is the science of determining the age of rocks, fossils, and sediments using signatures inherent in the rocks themselves. Absolute geochronology can be accomplished through radioactive isotopes, whereas relative geochronology is provided by tools such as palaeomagnetism and stable isotope ratios. By combining multiple geochronological (and biostratigraphic) indicators the precision of the recovered age can be improved. Geochronology is different in application from biostratigraphy, which is the science of assigning sedimentary rocks to a known geological period via describing, cataloguing and comparing fossil floral and faunal assemblages. Biostratigraphy does not directly provide an absolute age determination of a rock, but merely places it within an interval of time at which that fossil assemblage is known to have coexisted. Both disciplines work together hand in hand however, to the point where they share the same system of naming rock layers and the time spans utilized to classify layers within a stratum. The science of geochronology is the prime tool used in the discipline of chronostratigraphy, which attempts to derive absolute age dates for all fossil assemblages and determine the geologic history of the Earth and extraterrestrial bodies.

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