---
slug: overprint_sequence_inference
name: Overprint Sequence Inference
one_liner: "Reading relative order or history from how features intersect, interrupt, or overprint one another in a preserved record — what cuts across something else must post-date it."
type: prime
schema_version: 2
status: density_v2_draft
categories: [epistemic, structural, computational]
origin_domain: geology_stratigraphy
alternate_origin_domains: [textual_criticism, version_control, dendrochronology]
aliases: [superposition_inference, intersection_ordering, crosscut_dating, overprint_chronology, layer_truncation_reading]
related: []
solution_archetypes: []
review_flags:
- "OPERATOR-DERIVED (op-05 generalization) — the proposed GENUS of `cross_cutting_relationship` (lift: strip the geological medium and geometry vocabulary, leaving any inference rule that reads relative order/history from how features intersect, interrupt, or overprint one another in a preserved record). Discovered in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep 2026-07-03. Tier B candidate (B-rest): sonnet-proposed genus generalizing a single named input; inference-from-intersecting-features spans geology/manuscripts/version-control distinctly. STATUS: HOLD pending owner keep/cut."
- "Created 2026-07-03; STUB ONLY (frontmatter + Core Idea + Notes). SI/SF/similarity are PROPOSER ESTIMATES pending triangulation. Body sections (Structural Signature onward) NOT written."
- "Phase-C action: re-similarity-check vs `cross_cutting_relationship` and any provenance-reconstruction / temporal-ordering / trace-reading primes; confirm it is a genuine genus (covers the geological input AND siblings like manuscript stemma reconstruction and version-control blame) and not a domain instance or a restatement of the input; draw a subsumption edge cross_cutting_relationship→this + sibling edges at incorporation; sync one_liner to a v1 draft per CLAUDE.md before merge."
substrate_independence:
  composite_substrate_independence: 4
  domain_breadth: 4
  structural_abstraction: 4
  transfer_evidence: 4
  reasoning: 'The lifted genus is an inference rule, not a physical geometry: given a preserved record in which features overprint, interrupt, or truncate one another, derive their relative order — the overprinting feature post-dates the overprinted one. Once the crystalline geological vocabulary (dikes, faults, intrusions) is stripped, the rule is medium-neutral: it works on rock, parchment, tree rings, and commit graphs alike, so structural_abstraction and domain_breadth rise well above the framed input `cross_cutting_relationship`. Transfer evidence is fairly strong (4) because the siblings are real, established inference methods in their own fields (stemmatics, dendrochronology, VCS blame) rather than mere analogies. It falls short of the ceiling only because the genus presupposes a *preserved, non-erasing* record in which overprinting leaves a readable trace — a real substrate condition — so it is not fully unconstrained.'
similarity_to_nearest_existing_prime:
  slug: cross_cutting_relationship
  similarity: 0.68
structural_framed:
  label: structural
  aggregate: 0.24
  criteria: {vocab_travels: 0.3, evaluative_weight: 0.0, institutional_origin: 0.4, human_practice_bound: 0.2, import_vs_recognize: 0.3}
  rationale: 'The genus carries no evaluative weight and is not bound to a human practice: it is a recognizable inference pattern (read order from overprinting) that appears wherever a record preserves the marks of successive events. Its vocabulary generalizes off the geological particulars, and it is recognized rather than imported. It retains a mild framed tinge only from its named origin in stratigraphic method (Hutton/Steno lineage), which pulls institutional_origin slightly up. On balance it reads structural, well toward the structure-first end.'
phase_b_passes_completed: []
---
# Overprint Sequence Inference

## Core Idea

The genus is an inference rule: *given a preserved record in which features intersect, interrupt, or overprint one another, read their relative order from the intersection itself* — the feature that cuts across, displaces, or lies over another must post-date the one it disturbs. It is reached from the input `cross_cutting_relationship` by stripping the **geological medium and its intersection geometry**. The stratigraphic formulation — a dike or fault that cuts a rock body is younger than the body it cuts — is one instance; lift off the rock and the specific geometry, and what remains is the general epistemic move: *overprinting encodes ordering*, so wherever later events leave marks superimposed on earlier ones in a medium that does not erase, relative chronology can be recovered by reading which mark disturbs which.

The load-bearing anatomy has three parts. First, a *preserved, non-erasing record* — a substrate that accumulates the traces of successive events without wiping the earlier ones, so the history is layered rather than overwritten. Second, an *overprinting relation between features* — later features must interrupt, truncate, displace, or superimpose on earlier ones in a way that is asymmetric and readable (you can tell which one did the cutting). Third, an *ordering inference*: from the asymmetry of the overprint, derive a relative-time (or relative-provenance) ordering, and chain many such local judgments into a global sequence. The characteristic payoff is *chronology without a clock*: relative order is recovered from structure alone, with no timestamps, no dating apparatus, and no witness to the events — a powerful capacity when absolute time is unavailable. The characteristic cost/failure is *erasure and reworking*: if the medium is disturbed, healed, or overwritten (the overprint is itself overprinted away, or features are rearranged after the fact), the intersection record lies, and the inference silently produces a wrong order; the method is only as trustworthy as the record's fidelity, and it fails hardest exactly where the medium is most active.

Read as a genus rather than as a geology principle, the same inference recurs across structurally-unlike domains. In *textual criticism*, stemma reconstruction reads the relative order of manuscript copies from shared copying errors: a scribal mistake present in one branch but "cut across" by a correction in another orders the copies, and the error-overprinting topology reconstructs the copying history — the same move as reading a fault against a stratum. In *version control*, blame/diff ordering reads which change overwrote which line: a commit that overprints a region of a file post-dates the change it replaced, and the DAG of diffs reconstructs the edit chronology from overprinting alone. In *dendrochronology and varve counting*, ring or layer truncation orders growth events: a boundary that cuts across earlier rings post-dates them, and counting truncations reconstructs the sequence. Geology's cross-cutting case is one species; the stemma, the commit graph, and the ring record are structurally-unlike siblings sharing the identical overprint→order inference, which is what shows the lift is real rather than a restatement of the geological rule.

## Notes

**Provenance.** Produced by operator 05 (generalization / lift) as the proposed genus of the input `cross_cutting_relationship`, by stripping the geological medium and intersection geometry to leave the general inference rule that overprinting in a preserved record encodes relative order. Surfaced in the op-05 remaining-strata sweep on 2026-07-03. Claimed siblings: manuscript stemma reconstruction from copying errors; version-control blame/diff ordering; ring/varve counting from layer truncation. Manifest tier: B-rest (sonnet-proposed generalization; "inference from intersecting/overprinting features in a preserved record spans geology/manuscripts/version-control distinctly").

**For owner evaluation (keep/cut).** The case FOR: this is a comparatively strong Tier-B lift because the siblings are not loose analogies but genuine, independently-established inference methods in their fields (stemmatics is a mature discipline; VCS blame is an everyday tool; dendrochronology is a dating science), and they share a real epistemic skeleton — recover order from overprinting in a non-erasing record — that the geological input specializes with rock-specific geometry. Its substrate-independence and structural reading are both favorable. The RISKS, stated plainly for a coinage candidate: (1) **coinage/name risk** — "overprint sequence inference" is a sonnet-minted label, not an established cross-domain term, so Kurt should judge whether the concept is real-and-unnamed (worth keeping under a chosen name) or whether it fractures into field-specific methods with no true common genus. (2) **restatement risk** — confirm it does not merely restate `cross_cutting_relationship`; the discriminator is that the input requires geometric intersection of physical bodies whereas the genus covers non-geometric overprinting (a copying error, a diff, a ring truncation), so the lift adds real breadth. (3) **alias/overlap risk** — check against any existing provenance-reconstruction, temporal-ordering, or trace-reading prime; the genus may collapse into (or be a specialization of) a broader "reconstruct history from preserved traces" prime, in which case it is a child, not a peer. The sharp keep/cut question: *is "read order from overprinting" a genuine unnamed genus worth a prime, or a family resemblance across methods that already have their own homes?*

**At incorporation.** Re-run similarity against `cross_cutting_relationship` (the input — the restatement check), and against any provenance-reconstruction / relative-chronology / trace-reading / stratigraphy primes. If kept, draw a subsumption edge `cross_cutting_relationship → overprint_sequence_inference` (the geological rule as one species) and sibling edges to any textual-criticism, version-control, or dating primes. Note the likely missing edge to a broader "history from preserved traces" or "relative ordering" prime if one exists — this genus would sit under it and above the input. Write a v1 draft and sync the one_liner across v1 and v2 per CLAUDE.md before merge.
