Outline

Lecture 9 - EESA06: Earth 1.

2.
Relative Dating
Structural geology

Materials and Geologic 3.

4.
History of geology
Absolute Dating

time Keywords from this lecture

Strata
Stratigraphy
How do we date the past? Relative age vs absolute age
Accommodation, base level and subsidence
Conformable succession and disconformities
Index fossils and faunal succession
Laws of: Superposition, original horizontality, lateral continuity,
intrusion, inclusion, cross cutting relations
Brittle failure of rocks to form ‘faults’ (normal, reversed, strike slip)
Plastic deformation of rocks to form ‘folds’ (synclines, anticline)
Dip and strike
Geologic Mapping
Age of the Earth
Isotope dating using unstable radioactive isotopes
Parent isotope (e.g., U238 and daughter product (e.g., Lead Pb)
Half life
The geologic timescale
The Grand Canyon
strata

basement
How a geologist sees the Grand Canyon

Relative ages of rocks layers and thus of geological events

 Strata accumulates in basins.
Basins “accommodate” strata when they
deepen with subsidence of crust.

Subsidence

Sediments fill a basin with a

conformable succession of strata as Disconformities (D) mark pauses
long as the surface stays below the in sedimentation within an otherwise
base level of erosion. conformable succession of strata
Law of Superposition: The oldest
rocks are on the bottom, and strata
young upwards
 Disconformities can be identified with the use of ‘index fossils’ and
correlative layers like ash to correlate across long distances and gaps
Biostratigraphy
Lithostratigraphy/Chronostratigraphy
Volcanic ash
 Examples of index fossils
Best index fossils are short lived, and evolve rapidly (why?)

TRILOBITE AMMONITES CRINOID

We can use index fossils and Fossil Assemblages to
narrow down an age range

Taxa
Taxa
A, D, F,
C and E
and G

20-35 Million Years 25-30 Million Years

Possible that taxa like C, E, Possible that taxa A, D, F, G

simply don’t live in this don’t live in this
environment environment
 Law of Cross-Cutting Relations
and
Law of Intrusions

Tells us that the granite is younger than

the strata

What could granitic plutons tell us

about the tectonic environment?

1. INTRUDED BY A PLUTON
 Law of Original Horizontality
Strata are originally horizontal.
Deviations like tilting are due to later
structural changes (like folding or
faulting).

2. TILTED AND ERODED

Unconformities mark
episodes of uplift, erosion,
and non-deposition

Law of lateral continuity:

Strata originally continued
laterally until the edges of their
basin. If strata are interrupted
laterally, than some event has
caused that to happen (e.g.
erosion, faulting, intrusion)
Law of intrusions
Law of cross cutting relations:
Something that cuts across some
other feature is younger. E.g. the
dike cuts across all younger units
Cross Cutting Relationships and the Law of Inclusions can
help to establish a chronology:

‘PROVENANCE’: WHAT IS THE SOURCE OF THE GRAINS?

Red Jasper pebbles in 2.3 billion year old rocks come from
3+ billion year Superior Province Rocks
FINAL STRATIGRAPHY

Note that dike does not

continue through younger
strata
FINAL LANDSCAPE AFTER EROSION (plus modern surface)
Structural Geology
The ‘shape’ of strata – are rocks folded, faulted, or oriented in any way?

Folds: ductile “wrinkling” of rock layers

Faults: brittle breaks across which rock slides

Folding
Folded rocks: Anticline and Syncline
CASCADE MOUNTAIN, BANFF, ALBERTA

older

younger
Structural Geology inclinometer
+ compass

DIP AND STRIKE OF LAYERS

Mining
GEOLOGISTS AREN’T PERFECT… THEY HAVE THEIR FAULTS
WHAT TYPE ARE THESE?
History of Geology THE OLDEST KNOWN GEOLOGICAL MAP:
3150 YEARS OLD
WRITTEN ON PAPYRUS FOR RAMESSES IV
(1156-1150 BC)
Ancient Greeks recognized fossils
embedded in rocks now on tops of mountains

STRATA

Law of Superposition: The oldest layers are at the

bottom, youngest towards the top
1790-1820: THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

CREATED GREAT DEMAND FOR RESOURCES…..AND GEOLOGISTS

Geologic Survey of Canada formed to find coal in Ontario

1840 → Act of Union merged Upper and Lower Canada into

the Province of Canada

No Coal Problem: Growing domestic market based on

manufacturing, but no coal to power it

£1,500 to found the Geologic Survey of Canada in 1842 William Logan

Provincial Geologist, first
under Sir William Logan who had extensive experience in
director of the GSC
coal measures of Britain and the Maritimes

The Province of The Dominion

Canada - 1840 of Canada
1867
1859 - Oil Shale on Georgian Bay
was a poor substitute for coal

Outcompeted by free-flowing oil at Petrolia which was the first “oil

boom” in north America in 1861
 How old is the Earth?

Archbishop Ussher, 1581-1656

• declared in 1625 that “Earth formed at 9 am
on October 26th, 4004 B.C”
• Based on counting generations in the Bible

But……….
The father of modern geology: James Hutton 1726-97
1. Recognized unconformities within layers of rocks
and the igneous origin of granite

2. Proposed concept of uniformitarianism

(the present is the key to the past)

3. Came into conflict with Abram Werner and ‘diluvialism’ and

‘catastrophism’

“The result, therefore, of our present enquiry is, that

we find no vestige of a beginning, - no prospect of an
end. ”
ARTHUR’S SEAT, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND: A LONG DEAD VOLCANO

SILL
‘HUTTON’S UNCONFORMITY’
AT SICCAR POINT, SCOTLAND
 Louis Agassiz Charles Darwin HOW MUCH TIME IS
1807-73 1809-82 NEEDED FOR
EVOLUTION?

CATASTROPHISM -

and CREATIONISM -

vs

UNIFORMITARIANISM –

and EVOLUTION -

THE BIG DEBATE

OF THE 19TH CENTURY
Charles Lyell, Niagara Gorge – about 12 km of headward
1830’s calculated
that at least
erosion from the edge of the Niagara
12,000 years was Escarpment
needed to carve
Niagara Gorge
Niagara Falls is receding at a rate of about 1 m/year
The geophysicists
 ARTHUR HOLMES
1890-1965

• Pioneer of ‘absolute’ dating

(radiometric dating) using
isotopes
• 1913: publishes “The Age of
the Earth”
Isotope: different ‘versions’ of an
element (e.g., U238) having the same # of protons
but different numbers of neutrons

Many isotopes are unstable and

breakdown in various ways
most commonly by losing protons
and neutrons (radioactive decay) that
produces daughter products with a
different atomic number
2.5 billion year old zircons

Zircon crystal lattice

Human hair
The half life is defined as
‘time needed to reduce
the original amount of a
radioactive isotope by
half’ as a result of
radioactive decay
Radiocarbon age dating
• Used to date organic
material as old as 75,000
(75 ka) years
• Corrections are needed for
changing solar flux and
variations in amount of C14
produced in atmosphere.
Tom Krogh, Georgian Bay
ACASTA
GNEISS:
oldest
rock in
Canada: 4
billion
years old
So now with absolute dating…
Let’s try an example:
 The end result
THE ‘GEOLOGIC COLUMN’ WAS PUT
TOGETHER FROM SITES AROUND THE
WORLD BASED ON RELATIVE AGES AS
ESTABLISHED FROM FOSSILS

See also www.stratigraphy.org

Golden Spikes are places that mark an agreed upon age

boundary
 Geologic Time Scale

Precambrian (87%) (Next week!)

vs.
Phanerozoic (13%) (The week after!)
Geologic Time Scale