Event Stratigraphy

Abstract

The ‘Event Stratigraphy’ was initially proposed for recognition and stratigraphic correlation of the effects of significant and episodic physical and biological events record in wide regions. Traditionally, there is a dispute between the scope of ‘Event Stratigraphy’ in relation to Cyclostratigraphy, once that events before considered episodic, has become more and more predictable changes as part of models developed by researchers in different fields of knowledge, especially in geology. Despite of this dispute, rare and unique events are still among the changes to be accurately determined and analyzed by ‘Event Stratigraphy’. These events can be found in the limits of systems and stages of the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) of the International Commission of Stratigraphy (ICS) and corresponding to changes used to establish the boundaries between any two specific stages, be their biological (FADs of taxa) or geological (isotope changes, magnetic reversals, geochemical anomalies) origin, that can be extended and traced in wide regions. Also, one of the goals of ‘Event Stratigraphy’ is to decipher the nature, causes and extension of such deviations or anomalies marked in the geological record. Keywords: synchronous horizons, correlation events, stratigraphic unit’s boundaries, chronostratigraphic scale