Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part A Problem of effectiveness
- Part B Proposed solution
- Part C Applications for information-handling
- 9 Earth and biologic evolution
- 10 Proposed new Period Classification of fossils of past organisms
- 11 Paleoenvironment investigation
- 12 General stratigraphic procedures
- 13 Limitations of the use of zones
- 14 Event-Correlation
- Part D Further considerations
- Appendices 1 and 2: Worked examples of GOR and PTR forms
- Glossary
- References
- Index
12 - General stratigraphic procedures
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part A Problem of effectiveness
- Part B Proposed solution
- Part C Applications for information-handling
- 9 Earth and biologic evolution
- 10 Proposed new Period Classification of fossils of past organisms
- 11 Paleoenvironment investigation
- 12 General stratigraphic procedures
- 13 Limitations of the use of zones
- 14 Event-Correlation
- Part D Further considerations
- Appendices 1 and 2: Worked examples of GOR and PTR forms
- Glossary
- References
- Index
Summary
Purpose of discussion. The principal purpose of employing the PDHC is to make possible more accurate correlations of rocks by applying the whole potential of ‘fossil’ evidence together to such stratigraphic problems. In Chapter 14 below a new approach to correlation is described.
General current malaise of stratigraphic study. Since the time of William Smith, stratigraphic correlation has been mainly effected by comparing fossils in rock sequences, although interpretations of sediments and their thicknesses, of seismic reflectors and of many more local attributes of rocks have rightly been attempted. However, in the span of one human generation, the whole subject of stratigraphy, and particularly the application of information from fossils, has now come to be regarded as a matter of such unrewarding complexity that in some universities it is no longer seriously and directly studied; in consequence, as justification for a low opinion of stratigraphy, it is commonly denigrated as a mere data and memory study in contrast with the supposedly more process-orientated disciplines. In fact it is a historical discipline involving the interaction and application of many (process) systems, but possibly may not be seen in this light until advances can be announced.
No long search is necessary to indicate a basis for the pessimistic opinion, and comment below on two well-exposed publications (Hedberg 1976, Holland 1986) will suffice to represent the current difficulties, although both works are very properly dedicated to attempting to dispel some of the acknowledged confusion.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Fossils as InformationNew Recording and Stratal Correlation Techniques, pp. 72 - 85Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989