Think of your life as a sequence of sedimentary rock layers. Those layers on the bottom are the oldest, and, therefore, they represent your earliest deposition of life experiences. Yes, like Earth, you have some strata: Childhood, teen years, young adult, and beyond. Typically, the overlying layers build on those immediately beneath, but sometimes and for various reasons, unconformities separate the layers.
What the heck does that mean? First, a primer: Geologists recognize divisions among rock layers, divisions that indicate a change in the environment of deposition. When the environment changes because of tectonic activity or climate change, the deposition changes. An uplifted landmass doesn’t receive sediments, but rather it sheds them to lower elevations. A downwarped landmass acts like a sink, receiving sediments washed off highlands. Earth is fickle about elevations, however. Regions once high get reduced to lowlands by erosion, making them sinks. The same regions, maybe millions of years later, undergo another uplift followed, of course, by further erosion and reduced elevations. Up and down, erosion and deposition. Layers deposited and layers eroded. The leftover layers of rocks show these transitions and transformations by their composition and their divisions. In the process over the history of an area, some of the overlying layers lie on those below but share no common environment of deposition. Something radically different had occurred, so the layers, even though they make up the region, aren’t themselves related. They are separated by an unconformity.
Now you. Look at those layers. Are they piling up without a change in the environment of deposition? That is, are the layers relatively uniform with no discernible widespread breaks in the depositional process? Or is your layered life an example of deposition followed by a radical break in the process, making younger layers unrelated to those they overlie?
Hypothetical example: George grows up with considerable promise, makes good grades in school, and then goes to college, where he becomes an alcoholic, radically changing all future layers. Second hypothetical example: George grows up in the hood, participates in criminal and violent activity, goes to jail, and then, for whatever reason and through whatever agent, radically changes to become a positive force in society. Third hypothetical example: George grows up in middle America, has a positive ethics, works hard, builds a family, supports them and community, grows old, and dies in middle America.
Look at your layers. Are there unconformities?
What the heck does that mean? First, a primer: Geologists recognize divisions among rock layers, divisions that indicate a change in the environment of deposition. When the environment changes because of tectonic activity or climate change, the deposition changes. An uplifted landmass doesn’t receive sediments, but rather it sheds them to lower elevations. A downwarped landmass acts like a sink, receiving sediments washed off highlands. Earth is fickle about elevations, however. Regions once high get reduced to lowlands by erosion, making them sinks. The same regions, maybe millions of years later, undergo another uplift followed, of course, by further erosion and reduced elevations. Up and down, erosion and deposition. Layers deposited and layers eroded. The leftover layers of rocks show these transitions and transformations by their composition and their divisions. In the process over the history of an area, some of the overlying layers lie on those below but share no common environment of deposition. Something radically different had occurred, so the layers, even though they make up the region, aren’t themselves related. They are separated by an unconformity.
Now you. Look at those layers. Are they piling up without a change in the environment of deposition? That is, are the layers relatively uniform with no discernible widespread breaks in the depositional process? Or is your layered life an example of deposition followed by a radical break in the process, making younger layers unrelated to those they overlie?
Hypothetical example: George grows up with considerable promise, makes good grades in school, and then goes to college, where he becomes an alcoholic, radically changing all future layers. Second hypothetical example: George grows up in the hood, participates in criminal and violent activity, goes to jail, and then, for whatever reason and through whatever agent, radically changes to become a positive force in society. Third hypothetical example: George grows up in middle America, has a positive ethics, works hard, builds a family, supports them and community, grows old, and dies in middle America.
Look at your layers. Are there unconformities?
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