No areas closer to water and that have a lot more ice like at the poles will be much heavier affected then places like mountain towns
The basic principals of Uniformitarianism were enough to give geologists a sequencial history of the earth but absolute dating using isotope data from igneous rocks gathered using several different techniques (strontium/rubidium, parent/daughter isotope decay rates) and with the combination of these two geologists were able to develop the geological time scale.
Because they needed to change to gain things