Sunday 13 February 2022

The Great Unconformity

what is it? or more importantly where is it?



photograph Auchmithie, Scotland, the term Great Unconformity is frequently applied to either the unconformity observed by James Hutton in 1787 at Siccar Point in Scotland, or that observed by John Wesley Powell in the Grand Canyon in 1869, the Great Unconformity (GU) is one of geology’s deepest mysteries. It is a gap of missing time in the geological record between 100 million and 1 billion years long, and it occurs in different rock sections around the world. When and how the GU came to be is still not totally resolved, the missing time, this means that some 550 million-year-old rocks are found that date back 1.7 billion years, but no other traces from the years in between were found, how strange is that? for the Neoproterozoic glacial origin of the Great Unconformity, have a look here. 


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