Stratigraphic Guide

Preface

The second edition of the International Stratigraphic Guide, edited by Amos Salvador, was prepared by the International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification of the International Commission on Stratigraphy and co-published in 1994 by the International Union of Geological Sciences and the Geological Society of America. Like the first edition, edited by Hollis D Hedberg and published in 1976, the second edition of the Guide has been widely accepted and used by stratigraphers throughout the world. Copies can be obtained from the Geological Society of America, Publication Sales, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301, Fax 303-447-1133.

Despite the wide acceptance and distribution of the second edition of the Guide, stratigraphers and students of stratigraphy around the world have commented on difficulty in gaining access to the Guide mainly because of remote availability of copies and of cost. The present abridged version of the second edition of the Guide is an attempt to overcome these problems.

This abridged version is not a revision of the substance of the Guide; all essential tenets of the full second edition concerning stratigraphic classification, terminology, and procedure have been retained. Moreover, the abridged version has maintained the same organizational framework to the level of chapters, headings, and subheadings, so that the user can readily refer to the full version of the Guide for supplementary detail; and where non-essential discussions of certain sections have been eliminated, headings have still been retained so that the user can easily find the corresponding section in the full version of the Guide. The principal victims of the abridgement have been some explanatory text, examples of stratigraphic procedures, the Glossary of Stratigraphic Terms, the List of National or Regional Stratigraphic Codes, and the extensive Bibliography of Stratigraphic Classification, Terminology and Procedure.

The editors express their appreciation to the editor of Episodes for helping to meet the aims of this abridged version of the International Stratigraphic Guide by publishing it in his journal, and for agreeing to prepare and market covered reprints of this document at cost. These actions ensure that the basic tenets of stratigraphic classification, terminology, and procedure can now reach stratigraphers and students of stratigraphy everywhere in the world. As the notice accompanying this issue of Episodes states, individual covered reprints of the abridged version of the second edition of the Guide can be obtained from Episodes, P.O. Box 823, 26 Baiwanzhuang Road, 100037 Beijing, People’s Republic of China, for a few dollars plus postage charges.

An update of the abridged online version of the International Stratigraphic Guide by Murphy and Salvador follows here from the votes by the ISSC, ICS and ratification by the IUGS of a proposal that subseries/subepoch be formal units of chronostratigraphy/geochronology. These units are now included and formally defined in this online version of the Guide, and related texts have been adapted accordingly. Although minor modifications have been introduced for clarification in other parts of the text, the essence of the Guide remains unaltered.