How do index fossils help scientists establish how old rocks and other fossils are? In your answer, include fossils in the same layer of rock, in a lower layer of rock, and in a higher layer of rock compared to an index fossil.

Certain fossils, called index fossils, help geologists match rock layers. To be useful as an index fossil, a fossil must be widely distributed and represent a type of organism that existed for a brief time period. Index fossils are useful because they tell the relative ages of the rock layers in which they occur.