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THE GEOLOGICAL TIME SCALE (GTS)

A. Four eras - Precambrian; Paleozoic; Mesozoic;

Cenozoic
B. Periods under the Paleozoic era - Cambrian,
Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous,
Permian
C. Periods under the Mesozoic era - Triassic,
Jurassic, Cretaceous
D. Periods under the Cenozoic era - Tertiary and
Quaternary
 TYPES OF
DESCRIPTION EXAMPLES
FOSSILS
Impression made in a substrate =
Molds Shells
negative image of an organism
Casts When a mold is filled in Bones and teeth
Petrified trees; Coal balls
Organic material is converted into (fossilized plants and
Petrified
stone their tissues, in round ball
shape)
Preserved wholly (frozen in ice,
Woolly mammoth; Amber
Original trapped in tar pits, dried/ dessicated
from the Baltic Sea
Remains inside caves in arid regions or encased
region
in amber/ fossilized resin)
Carbon impression in sedimentary Leaf impression on the
Carbon Film
rocks rock
Trackways, toothmarks,
Trace/ Record the movements and behaviors gizzard rocks, coprolites
Ichnofossils of the organism (fossilized dungs),
burrows and nests
 THE SIX WAYS OF FOSSILIZATION
1. Unaltered preservation - Small organism or part trapped in amber, hardened plant
sap
2. Permineralization/ Petrification - The organic contents of bone and wood are
replaced with silica, calcite or pyrite, forming a rock-like fossil
3. Replacement - hard parts are dissolved and replaced by other minerals, like calcite,
silica, pyrite, or iron
4. Carbonization or Coalification - The other elements are removed and only the carbon
remained
5. Recrystalization - Hard parts are converted to more stable minerals or small crystals
turn into larger crystals
6. Authigenic preservation - Molds and casts are formed after most of the organism
have been
7. destroyed or dissolved
DATING FOSSILS
1. RELATIVE DATING
• Based upon the study of layer of rocks
• Does not tell the exact age: only compare fossils as older or younger,
depends on their position in rock layer 25
• Fossils in the uppermost rock layer/ strata are younger while those in the
lowermost deposition are oldest
How Relative Age is Determined
• Law of Superposition: if a layer of rock is undisturbed, the fossils found
on upper layers are younger than those found in lower layers of rocks
• However, because the Earth is active, rocks move and may disturb the
layer making this process not highly accurate
 RULES OF RELATIVE DATING
A. LAW OF SUPERPOSITION
• Sedimentary layers are deposited in a specific time- youngest rocks on top,
oldest rocks at the bottom
B. LAW OF ORIGINAL HORIZONTALITY
• Deposition of rocks happen horizontally- tilting, folding or breaking
happened recently
C. LAW OF CROSS-CUTTING RELATIONSHIPS
• If an igneous intrusion or a fault cuts through existing rocks, the
intrusion/fault is YOUNGER than the rock it cuts through INDEX FOSSILS
(guide fossils/ indicator fossils/ zone fossils): fossils from short-lived
organisms that lived in many places; used to define and identify geologic
periods
DATING FOSSILS
2. ABSOLUTE DATING
• Determines the actual age of the fossil
• Through radiometric dating, using radioactive isotopes
carbon-14 and potassium-40
• Considers the half-life or the time it takes for half of the
atoms of the radioactive element to decay
• The decay products of radioactive isotopes is stable
atoms.