GEOLOGICAL DATING PRINCIPLES QUESTIONED Paleohydraulics: a new approach

摘要

Stratigraphy, the basis of geological dating was founded in the ⅩⅧ century on the three well-known principles assumed by Stenon: superposition, continuity, original horizontality. These three principles came from a postulate in sedimentology: layers of sub-soil are strata of ancient successive sediments. Stratigraphy is, therefore,based upon data acquired from sedimentology. On the basis of successive observations and experiments this paper realises and verifies that Stenon's stratigraphic model was not in line with experimental data because it had "overlooked" the major variable factor of sedimentology: the current and its chronological effects. The sedimentological process can, effectively, be divided into three phases: erosion, transport and deposit of sediments, with the liquid current being the vector of transport. Stenon's stratigraphy only took into account the third phase of sedimentology, the deposit, implicitly assuming the velocity of current to be nil. The author of this paper simulated the constitution of layers of sediment generated at variable velocities from differing granulometries. He reincorporated the chronology of currents into the field of his scientific investigations, as it was indispensable for modelling all the interlinked sequences in sedimentology, stratigraphy and geological dating. The author introduced paleohydraulics as the new approach to geological dating to integrate the two ends of the chain,and refers to radiometric dating measures of eruptive rocks recognised as aberrant in relation to the date of eruption. Generally speaking, the new approach-paleohydraulics brings about the establishment of experimental sedimentology and Stenon's ⅩⅧ century postulate and principles are no more than interpretations that must be carefully checked with data from observation and the laboratory.