EARTH 7 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Lithostratigraphy, Carbon-14, Biostratigraphy
Document Summary
Relative dating- the age of rocks compared to others (not as specific) Geological timescale- provides relative and absolute age info simultaneously. First methods created by nicolas steno (1638 - 1686: showed people what artifacts/fossils were. Original horizontality- sediment/ mud fall to low lying areas horizontally. Lateral continuity- at time of deposition, rocks/sediment are laterally continuous; may now be separated by a landmark. Superposition- strata form by the accumulation of rock particles: oldest on bottom and youngest on top. Cross cutting relationships (& erosional contacts)- a rock unit is older than any feature that cuts or disrupts it (i. e. the writing on a street) a. ) Deep time- no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end. Uniformitarianism- the present in the key to the past. First to believe that the earth is extremely oled. Instead of using sudden creation/religion to explain geological phenomenon, he used present evidence to explain them. Physical processes observed today operated in the geological past.
