Taylor Rasmussen
Geology 1010
Reflection
Geology 1010 has is an introductory course of basic geology and the principles that go into
making geological structures. I have enjoyed taking this class because it taught me things I had no idea
were goin on underneath our feet. Plate tectonics, wethering and erosion, volcanoes, and earthquakes
were some on the topics discussed in the classroom and throughout the book.
Our instructor had a do a couple of labs as a learning excersise to tie into the material he was
covering. The first lab was aboutsedimentary structures and facies maps. It taught us about different
types of structures that form from weathering and erosion. The second lab though is what I am going to
talk about.
It covered the cross cutting relationships and the law of superposition. These are clues to
figuring out how old the rock is and if the rock on top is older or younger than the one on the bottom. A
dike is going to be younger than the rock it is covering, refering to the cross cutting relationships. Also
we learned about correlating rocks and fossils and to where rocks fall on the geologic time scale, if they
are in different regions. The Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Bryce Canyon National Park all have
certain types of rock that are related to eachother. By knowing what type of rock, it can be placed in the
right time scale geologically.
This lab was useful in order to grasp the concept of how everything fits together. It all starts out
flat due to the principle of original horizontality. But do to movement of the plates and inclusions things
can get shifted. I learned that eventually you can figure out what rock is older and what rock is younger
by using this lab.