ESS1.C: The History of Planet Earth
The geologic time scale interpreted from rock strata provides a way to organize Earth’s history. Analyses of rock strata and the fossil record provide only relative dates, not an absolute scale. (MS-ESS1- 4)
CATASTROPHISM is contrary to UNIFORMITARIANISM, the accepted geological doctrine for over 150 years. Uniformitarianism states that current geologic processes, occurring at the same rates observed today, in the same manner, account for all of earth's geological features. As present processes are thought to explain all past events, the Uniformitarianism slogan is "the present is the key to the past." Uniformitarianism ignores the possibility of past cataclysmic activity upon the surface of the earth.