RELATIVE DATING

 Relative dating is used to arrange geological events, and the rocks they leave behind, in
a sequence.
 It does not provide specific or actual numerical dates for the rocks.
 It only determines whether an object is younger or older than other things found at the
site.
 Once they know the order, a relative age can be determined for each rock layer.
 Relative age is the approximate age determination of rocks, fossils or minerals made by
comparing whether the material is younger or older than other surrounding material.

Uniformitarianism
- is the idea that Earth has always changed in uniform ways and that the present is the
key to the past. 

PRINCIPLE OF UNIFORMITARIANISM
- natural processes behave more or less in the same way today as they have throughout
the past, and will continue to do so in the future.
 Earthquakes
 Volcanism
 Deposition
 Plate tectonics

6 RELATIVE DATING PRINCIPLES

The sequence of geologic events can be determined using several principles:
1. Principle of Original Horizontality
Sediments deposited or precipitated on the Earth’s surface accumulate in horizontal
layers. Therefore, if rocks are tilted, folded or metamorphosed, then these events must
have followed deposition and lithification. The exception to this principle is at the margins
of basins, where the strata can slope slightly downward into the basin.
2. Principle of Lateral Continuity
Within the depositional basin, strata are continuous in all directions until they thin out at
the edge of that basin. All strata eventually end, either by hitting a geographic barrier, or
when the depositional process extends too far from its source. Strata that are cut by a
canyon later remain continuous on either side of the canyon.

3. Principle of Superposition
In a series of undisturbed layered rocks each successive layer above is younger than
the layer below it. The oldest rocks are at the bottom of the sequence and the youngest
are at the top.

4. Principle of Cross-Cutting Relationships

Any geologic feature that crosscuts or modifies another feature must be younger than
the rocks it cuts through. The cross-cutting feature is the younger feature because there
must be something previously there to cross-cut.  Cross-cutting features can include
folds, faults, and igneous intrusions. They can also include events like metamorphism.
5. Principle of Inclusions
A rock that contains fragments or pieces of another rock must be younger than the
pieces of rock that it contains. Sedimentary rocks can contain clasts of other rocks
or igneous rocks can contain foreign rock fragments which were ripped from surrounding
rocks by the magma.

6.  Principle of Fossil Succession

Fossil organisms succeed one another upward through rock layers in a definite and
determinable order; therefore, any time period can be recognized by its fossil content.
References:
https://hraf.yale.edu/teach-ehraf/relative-and-absolute-dating-methods-in-archaeology/
https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1485-relative-dating
https://askinglot.com/what-are-examples-of-uniformitarianism
https://viva.pressbooks.pub/physicalgeologylab/chapter/relative-dating/
https://flexbooks.ck12.org/cbook/ck-12-middle-school-earth-science-flexbook-2.0/section/15.4/
primary/lesson/principles-of-relative-dating-ms-es/
https://geo.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Geology/Book
%3A_An_Introduction_to_Geology_(Johnson_Affolter_Inkenbrandt_and_Mosher)/
07%3A_Geologic_Time/7.01%3A_Relative_Dating