A. The principles of superposition and original horizontality.

Answer these two question for

each image:

1. Is the rock deformed or not?

2. If it is deformed describe the specific features of the rock that led you to know that.

Image 1: Grand Canyon, Arizona rock layers.

1. In this image we can see that the rock layers are not deformed. How do we know it? The
rock layers (which have differents red/brown tones) are horizontal. The principles of
superposition and original horizontality tell us that layers of sediment are deposited in
horizontal orientation.

Image 2: Cliff face, south-central Alaska.

1. The rock is deformed.

2. There are two things that suggest us deformation processes: a) the rock strata is almost
vertical oriented. Remember that we have to assume that the sediments were originally
deposited in horizontal orientation, so deformation processes probably changed their
position b) in the center of the picture there is a big fault (straight line) that have broken
the rock mass (you can see that the rock strata don’t have continuity after the fault), fault
presence suggest us deformation processes.

Image 3: Quartzite.

1. This rock is deformed.

2. The wavy lines that you can see in the picture suggest us that the rock was affected for
deformation processes. That rock is a Quartzite, this rock is generated under high
-pressure conditions (an important parameter in deformation processes).

Image 3: Sandstone, Little Colorado River Gorge.

1. This rock is not deformed. The rock strata is in horizontal orientation.

B. There are two kinds of deformation: brittle deformation and ductile deformation. When a
group of rocks is affected by processes of deformation it can be broken or the rock strata
will change theirs orientations (without lose their continuity).

Example of ductile deformation is showed in picture 3: the wavy lines are known as folds,
the strata was affected for deformation processes and changed their orientation, but they
didn’t lose their continuity.
 Example of brittle deformation is showed in picture 2: The fault is generated when the
rock mass lose its continuity.

C.