History of Earth

 Describe how layers of stratified rocks are formed

 Describe the different methods of determining the age of stratified rocks
 Explain how relative dating were used to determine the subdivision of geologic
time.
 History of
Earth
Explained through

Relative Absolute Geologic

dating dating timescale
Relative Dating
One of the most important guiding principles in the study
of the Earth’s history is the principle of
UNIFORMITARIANISM by James Hutton. According to
Hutton, the physical processes occurring today also
occurred at comparable rates in the immensely long past.
 The Law of Stratigraphy
The Law of superposition states that the
youngest rock is the top layer, and the oldest
rock is on the bottom whenever you have rock
layers

NICOLAUS STENO
 The Law of Lateral Continuity
According to the Law of lateral continuity, the layers of rocks are
continuous until they encounter other solid bodies that block their
deposition or until they are acted upon by agents that appeared after
deposition took place such as erosion and fault movement.
 The Law of Cross-cutting relationship
According to this law, any rock, fault, or structure that cuts
another rock or structure is younger than the rock or structure it
cuts.
 Unconformities
These are surfaces of erosion and non-deposited that
separate younger rocks from older ones.

1. Angular unconformity
2. Nonconformity
3. Disconformity
4. Paraconformity
 1. Angular unconformity
- originally-deposited horizontal layers
are folded or tilted and then eroded. When erosion
stops, a new horizontal layer is deposited on top of
the tilted layer, forming an angular boundary
between the older tilted rocks and the younger
horizontal layers.
2. Nonconformity
-when metamorphic or igneous rocks in
contact with sedimentary layers indicate a
period of uplift and erosion of previous
igneous/metamorphic rocks, prior to the
deposition of a younger sedimentary rocks.
3. Disconformity
- Layers of sediments are uplifted without
folding but are subjected to weathering and erosion,
producing an irregular surface. Eventually, the layer
subsides and deposition resumes, forming irregular
boundary between the older and younger layers.
4. Paraconformity
- is an unconformity where the
strata are parallel to each other and the
contact is a simple bedding plane indicative
of a continuous deposition.