EARTHSC 1122 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Uniformitarianism
4 Dec 2015
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Principles of earth history: james hutton"s concepts (geologic time, uniformitarianism, unconformities, superposition, original horizontality, lateral continuity, cross-cutting relationships, included fragments, biotic succession (fossil records, will ( strata ) smith"s principle. Father of stratigraphy: nicholas steno"s principles of stratigraphy , charles lyell"s concepts. Physical, chemical, and biological processes that operate today have also operated in the geologic past. The present is the key to the past . The past is the key to the future . In an undisturbed succession of rocks, older beds occur below younger beds. Sedimentary strata were originally deposited in a nearly horizontal position. If strata are not horizontal in attitude, they probably were moved from their original attitude. Strata originally extended in all directions until they thinned out or terminated against the edges of their basin of deposition. Because of their original, continuous, tabular shapes, strata can today be correlated across valleys, etc. (where erosion or faulting has occurred)
