question archive As you pass by an excavation in the street, you see a cross section showing paving at the top, soil below the paving, and bedrock at the base

As you pass by an excavation in the street, you see a cross section showing paving at the top, soil below the paving, and bedrock at the base

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As you pass by an excavation in the street, you see a cross section showing paving at the top, soil below the paving, and bedrock at the base. You also notice that a vertical water pipe extends through a hole in the street into a sewer in the soil. What can you say about the relative ages of the various layers and the water pipe?

 

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The ages of the materials are as follows:-

water pipe (youngest)

pavement

soil

bedrock(oldest)

 

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Step-by-step explanation

This is a classical case of the principle of superposition which states that in an undisturbed sequence, the strata lying at the top is older than the strata below it.

 

The vertical water pipe which cuts through all these layers is the youngest. This is given by the law of crosscut relationship. It states that the object that crosscuts is always younger than the layers it crosscuts.