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Contents of 1.4 Current Perspectives

1.4 Uniformitarianism

• Current perspectives
• Not taken literally
• Early conditions likely differed (temperature, chemistry)
• Conditions affect rates of processes
• Early Earth processes likely occurred at different rates than today, although the same physical principles limited them
• Is Uniformitarianism predictive? Sort of
• We know for instance that mountains will wear down and oceans will open and close in the future.
• It is less likely that we can predict where and when an earthquake will occur.