Discussion 5 Uniformitarianism/Principles of Geology

Uniformitarianism is used by people everyday of their lives.   Something happens that we did not witness.   We can still make some conclusions about what happened by using past experiences of witnessing such events.   Give an example of sometime in your life in the last year that you used uniformitarianism to determine the sequence of events after the fact (when you were not there to witness it).  Be careful to make your example one that relies on the constancy and predictability of natural processes (NOT human behavior).

Then, give an example of how uniformitarianism is used to interpret rocks.

Discuss in the context of your observations from the lab:  "As Steno’s principles gained acceptance, however, they began to undermine the biblical chronology he had believed. In 1720, chemist René Réaumur published a description of sediment layers composed mostly of broken shells. Because many of these layers were several meters thick, he argued that they could not have been deposited by a flood lasting, as the Bible described Noah’s Flood, less than a year. By the late 18th century, some geologists had also begun to question the antiquity of humankind compared to other forms of life. In deeper and therefore older sediment layers, they found “relics” of Noah’s Flood which, according to the Old Testament, happened after the creation of humans. So they should have found human remains in the older rock layers, too, but they didn’t; human remains appeared only in the youngest rocks. Even more amazing, fossil collectors found a menagerie of remains—of marine and flying reptiles, oddly-proportioned mammals, and a huge variety of invertebrates—recorded nowhere in history. An astonishing succession of life forms had apparently come and gone before humans arrived on the planet."    http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Steno/steno6.php Links to an external site.