 At a certain locality on the Earth's surface, the rock column provides a cross section of the natural history in the area during the time covered by the age of the rocks.This is sometimes called the "rock history" and gives a window into the natural history of the location that spans many geological time units such as ages, epochs, or in some cases even multiple major geologic periods—for the particular geographic region or regions.The geologic record is in no one place entirely complete for where geologic forces one age provide a low-lying region accumulating deposits much like a layer cake, in the next may have uplifted the region, and the same area is instead one that is weathering and being torn down by chemistry, wind, temperature, and water.