Catmon National High School

Senior High School

EARTH AND LIFE SCIENCE

RELATIVE AND ABSOLUTE DATING
EARTH AND LIFE SCIENCE
Stratigraphy
• Stratigraphy It is the branch
of geology that deals with the
description, correlation, and
interpretation of stratified
sediments and stratified rocks
on and within the Earth.

• It is the study of the rock

layers(strata).
Laws of Stratigraphy

1. Law of Original Horizontality

2. Law of Superposition

3. Law of Crosscutting

4. Law of Faunal Succession

5. Law of Lateral Continuity

Laws of Stratigraphy

Law of Original Horizontality

•Sediment usually accumulates in horizontal
layers
•Tectonic forces tilted or folded rocks into an
angle after it was formed.
Laws of Stratigraphy

Law of Superposition
•Sedimentary rocks
become younger from
bottom to top.
Laws of Stratigraphy

Law of Crosscutting
•Rocks must exist before
anything else happened like
intrusions or dike-cutting
across rocks.
Laws of Stratigraphy

Law of Faunal Succession

•Species succeeded one
another through time in a
definite order relative to
the ages of sedimentary
rocks.
Laws of Stratigraphy

Law of Lateral Continuity

•Layers with same rocks but
separated by a valley or
erosion are initially
continuous.
Stratification of Rock Layers
1. Which layer is the
oldest? Layer C
2. What law is represented
by layer D? Law of Crosscutting
3. Which layer is the
youngest? Layer D
RELATIVE DATING
• Relative dating do not
YOUNGER ROCK determine the exact age of a
fossil or rock.

• The relative age of a rock is

its age in comparison with
OLDER ROCK
other rocks.
ABSOLUTE DATING
•Absolute dating or radiometric dating give rocks
an actual date or date range in numbers of years.

•The half-life of a radioactive decay process is the

time taken for half the original parent atoms to
decay.
Assignment:
Copy and
answer in a
short bond
paper.