Rock Layers

Absolute Age
Relative Age
Law of Superposition
Fault

Who Dunit?
Someone took the last cookie in the cookie jar
last night. The last person to leave the scene
is the culprit. Who was it?

Clues
The butler walks to work
The handyman rides a bike
The cook rides a motorcycle
The maid drives a car
The nephew has a seeing-eye dog

Who Dunit?

Objectives
8.E.2 - Understand the history of Earth
and its life forms based on evidence of
change recorded in fossil records and
landforms.

What to expect this unit??

2 quizzes 3/11 & 3/18
1 test 3/22
Project

Types of Rocks (review)

Igneous Rock (formed when
magma cools)

Metamorphic Rock (other rock

types transformed by heat and
pressure)

Sedimentary Rock (rock formed

from minerals deposited near
bodies of water; forms rock layers)

Relative Age vs. Absolute Age

Relative Age
The age based

on compared
position
relative to
other rocks
applies to both
sedimentary
and igneous
rocks

Absolute Age
The number of

years since the

rock has formed
based on
radioactive decay of
atoms in minerals
in Igneous rock
and some
metamorphic rock

Half-Life
the time

taken for the

radioactivity
of a specified
isotope to
fall to half its
original
value.

Law of Superposition
In horizontal layers of sedimentary rocks,
the oldest layer is at the bottom.

Each layer above

is younger than
the layers below it.

Law of Superposition
Which layer is the oldest?
Which layer is the youngest?

Faults
a break or crack along
which rocks move.

Sometimes an igneous
intrusion or fault will cut
across or into the rock layers.

The intrusion or fault will

always be younger than
the rocks being intruded
or displaced.

Principle of Crosscutting
Intrusion: is any
formation of intrusive
igneous rock; rock
formed
frommagmathat cools
and solidifies within
the crust of the planet.
During some plate movement,
igneous rock forms in the
process.

Unconformity
Erosion causes new rock
layers to meet older rock
layers. This leads to a gap in
the geologic record (missing
rocks layers and fossils).

Principle of
Superposition

Principle of
Number theSuperposition
events below in the order they occurred in
time, 1-9
__ earthquake
__ deposit D
__ deposit B
__ deposit G
__ intrusive lava
__ rocky deposit R
__ river cuts through
__ deposit E
__ deposit A

Video
While watching the video answer
How does the Grand Canyon form and what
is the evidence to support this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgE-dSxfPc