The fact that Phanerozoic sediments have been so successfully subdivided and correlated is attributable to the presence of abundant fossil remains of life-forms that evolved and underwent changes over time. Precambrian sediments lack such fossils, thus preventing any comparable correlations. There are, however, stromatolites in Precambrian sediments ranging in age from about 3.5 billion to 540 million years that reached their peak of development in the Proterozoic. Stromatolites underwent evolutionary changes sufficient for Russian biostratigraphers to use to subdivide the Riphean sequence into four main zones throughout widely separated areas of former Soviet territory. Similar stromatolite-based stratigraphic divisions have been recognized in the Norwegian islands of Spitsbergen, China, and Australia. This stromatolite biostratigraphy still has relatively limited application, however. As a consequence, it is the chronometric time scale that is used to subdivide Precambrian time and to correlate rocks from region to region and from continent to continent.
The rocks within Proterozoic orogenic belts are invariably too deformed to allow correlation of units between different belts. Nonetheless, the techniques of geochronology—in particular, zircon dating—have improved considerably in recent years, with the result that rocks of approximately similar age on different continents can be mutually compared and regarded as equivalent. The isotopic dating of Archean rocks, especially with the use of zircons, has enabled similarities and differences in age to be determined, thereby aiding correlation.
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