Question 1

What are the six fundamental geologic principles which are used in relative dating?

Accepted Answer

superposition,original horizontality,lateral continuity,cross-cutting relationships,inclusions,fossil succession

Question 2

What is the principle of uniformitarianism? Why does the principle of uniformitarianism lead to the conclusion that Earth's age is great?

Accepted Answer

Present-day processes have operated throughout geologic time; the laws of physics,chemistry,and biology have operated throughout geologic time.Geologists can observe that the processes which are currently shaping,and previously shaped,Earth occur very slowly or infrequently and cannot be accommodated by an historic time scale.

Question 3

Explain why correlation by fossils is necessary to demonstrate time equivalence of strata.

Accepted Answer

Each life form is indicative of a specific interval of geologic time.

Question 4

What criteria are used to correlate rock units in different areas?

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Question 5

What is the goal of subsurface correlation techniques that is used in the search for oil and gas?

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Question 6

A clast of granite taken from a conglomerate is determined by radiometric dating to be one hundred million years old.What,if anything,does this tell you about the age of the conglomerate?

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Question 7

Why was Lord Kelvin's argument for the age of Earth fundamentally in error?

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Question 8

Earlier Precambrian rocks could not be correlated over great distances from one area to another (e.g.,from Canada to Europe)but younger rocks were correlated in the same areas with a high degree of confidence.Why was this?

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Question 9

Why don't the sources of uncertainty in radiometric dating invalidate or lend suspicion to the results obtained?

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Question 10

What fact makes radiocarbon dating possible?

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Question 11

Describe how stalagmites are used to reconstruct past climate.

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Question 12

What are the requirements for a useful guide fossil?

Accepted Answer

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Question 13

What is the principle of superposition,and what is its importance? Who is credited with discovering it?

Accepted Answer

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Question 14

What is the principle of fossil succession,and what is its importance? Who is credited its discovery?

Accepted Answer

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Question 15

Why is it necessary to employ lithologic and fossil correlation to establish a relative sequence of geologic time?

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Question 16

What are seismic profiles?

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Question 17

What types of deposits are considered marker beds? What is the importance of a marker bed?

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Question 18

How does relative dating differ from absolute dating?

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Question 19

How are zones of rocks that are deposited during equivalent time intervals constructed using fossil assemblages?

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Question 20

How does the sequence of events differ between an angular unconformity and a disconformity?

Accepted Answer

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Quiz 17: Geologic Time: Concepts and Principles