GEOLOGIC TIME

AND GEOLOGIC
HISTORY
GEOLOGIC TIME
 One of the goals of the field of historical geology is to understand how
the Earth has changed over eons of time. Reconstructing Earth’s history
requires establishing both a sequence of events and utilizing various methods
of measuring geologic time. Geologists established a detailed sequence of
Earth’s history using observations of the relationships between rocks to
determine their relative age. When you determine the relative age of a rock,
instead of establishing its numerical age in years before the present, you are
comparing its age to other rocks using words such as older or younger.
The discovery of radioactivity in 1898 by Henri Becquerel
revolutionized the study of geologic time. The natural decay of radioactive
isotopes gave geologist materials. With this new tool, called isotopic dating
or radiometric dating, geologist could start assigning numerical values to
some rock materials to complement the previously determined relative ages.
 RELATIVE AGE

Sedimentary rocks have bedding, a kind of planar

feature in the rock. A layer of sedimentary rock that
is visually separable from other layers is a bed or
stratum. The plural for stratum is strata.
Because of the way they form, beds or strata
generally follow or obey certain laws called the laws
of stratigraphy.
 RELATIVE AGE

Sedimentary rocks have bedding, a kind

of planar feature in the rock. A layer of
sedimentary rock that is visually
separable from other layers is a bed or
stratum. The plural for stratum is strata.
Because of the way they form, beds
or strata generally follow or obey certain
laws called the laws of stratigraphy.
STRATIGRAPHIC LAWS
Stratigraphy is the study of strata, or
sedimentary layers. The principle of
origin horizontality states that
sedimentary layers are deposited
horizontally or nearly so. Even after
hundreds of millions of years have
passed, many of the rocks in the grand
canyon still have nearly their original
horizontal orientation.
This principle implies that after
deposition, regional deformation tilted
layers.
Sedimentary rock layers are deposited in
sequence one on top of the other, so that the
oldest rocks are the bottom of the sequence and
the youngest rocks are on top.
This is the principle of stratigraphic
superposition. Certain sedimentary features, such
as graded bedding, cross-bedding, ripple marks,
and mud cracks, may indicate whether a
sequence has been overturned after deposition
and lithification.
When rocks form, they sometimes
incorporate pre-existing rocks into them. This
leads us to the principle of inclusions: the rock
containing inclusions is younger than the
inclusion it contains. All rock types obey the law
inclusions.
CROSS-CUTTING RELATIONSHIPS

One geologic feature may cut across another,

indicating that the first feature is younger than
the second. This is the principle of cross- cutting
relationships.
For example, a dike cutting across bed of
sandstone indicates that the dike is younger than
the sandstone.

a. Block diagram showing a number of dikes

that intruded a series of sedimentary layers at
different times.
b. Different episodes of intrusion of light-
colored rhyolite dikes cutting through a
granodiorite pluton of the central mountains
of the Hispaniola (Dominican Republic).
FOIL SUCCESSION
Fossil evidence is another useful tool in determining relative age of rocks. A
fossil is any evidence of pre-existing life preserved in a rock.
A clamshell in a rock can be a fossil; so can a footprint of a dinosaur. Fossils
help us date rocks because of the principle of fossil succession (also known as the law
of faunal succession)
This principle states that organisms evolve in a definite order, that species evolve and
become extinct, never to re-evolve. Thus, the evolution of a species and its extinction
become time makers separating time into three units:
1. Before the organism existed.
2. During the existence of the organism.
3. After the organism went extinct.
 The presence of a particular fossil species indicates that the rock containing the
fossil was formed at a time between the evolution and extinction of that species.
 Index, or guide fossils are organisms that existed for a short period of time, then
went extinct. This short lifetime helps to narrow the possible age of rocks
containing them, more than fossils that existed for a long time.
 The fossils present in a rock are characteristics of the time when the formed and
the depositional environment in which the preserved organisms lived. This aids us
in determining details of the geologic history of an area.
 Rocks with matching sets of fossils from two different localities are probably of
similar age and are correlative. The process of matching them is correlation.
 In addition to fossils, sometimes a unique or distinctive layer called a key bed,
which forms from a widespread rapid event, is a time marker and helps with
correlation.
UNCONFORMITIES
 Other features found in rocks that reveal much about the geologic history of an
area are unconformities. When an area is deformed, uplift and erosion often
occur. Later subsidence (sinking of the land) or submergence and transgression
due to sea level rise and fall may take place, followed by deposition of
sediment on the eroded surface.
 Transgression is the progressive deposition of sediment farther and farther
inland on a continent as sea level rises relative to the land. These sediments are
deposited on a surface of much older rocks. Thus, an unconformity is a
boundary between rocks of distinctly different ages where rocks were either
deposited and then eroded, or simply not deposited.
 DEVELOPMENT OF DIFFERENT
TYPES OF UNCONFORMITIES
a. Sediment is deposited below sea level.
b. Rocks are uplifted and tilted.
c. Erosion exposes folded rocks.
d. Rocks sink below sea level and new rocks are deposited.

--the nature of unconformity may change with position. The disconformity,

between parallel strata becomes an angular unconformity, where the rocks were tilted
and folded. It centre is a nonconformity, where uplift brought plutonic rock (granite)
high enough to be eroded before sediments were laid on top.
 For all unconformities, the rocks younger than the unconformity are sedimentary
and/or volcanic rocks (the older rocks may also be the same types) and are
usually close to parallel to the unconformity surface, making it a disconformity.
 Angular unconformity may be tilted or folded sedimentary/volcanic rocks and
that are not parallel to the unconformity surface. Alternatively, the rocks below
the unconformity may be plutonic igneous/ metamorphic rocks, making it a
nonconformity.
 Unconformities can be obvious or subtle, and they can represent anywhere from
modest to vast amounts of geologic time and history.
 Disconformities- unconformities where the layers above and below are parallel–
represent much passage time.
 An unconformity is likely to represent the passage amount of a great deal of time,
a mountain building and a mountain eroding event that becomes a gap in the rock
record.
GEOLOGIC TIME
GEOLOGIC TIME
Is a study of past geologic processes and events that
shaped the Earth. When we see tilted layers, the
superposition of strata, cross-cutting relationships, faults,
unconformities, and igneous intrusions on geologic maps
and cross sections, we can combine this information to
determine the sequence of past geological events and to
interpret geological history.
 SEQUENCE OF EVENTS THAT FORMED THE ROCKS IN THE CROSS SECTION

Event sequence Complete Description of Geologic Events

Last (youngest) Erosion removed 12 and parts of other layers

13th Tilting caused by plate movements

12th Deposition of shale 11 and possibly limestone 12

11th Deposition of siltstone 10

10th Deposition of cross bedded sandstone 9

9th Deposition of conglomerate 8 as a result of subsidence and/ or transgression

8th Erosion removed 6 and parts of other layers, wearing away mountains to a nearly flat surface A
and producing angular unconformity A
7th Intrusion of 7. Magma intruded and solidified.

6th Folding and uplift due to compression, mountain building, convergence

5th Deposition of yellow sandstone 5 and possibly 6

4th Deposition of red shale 4

3rd Deposition of limestone 3

2nd Deposition of green shale 2

1st (oldest) Deposition of buff sandstone 1