Abstract
Initially, terrestrial evidence formed the foundation for the division of Quaternary time. However, since the 1970s there has been an abandonment of the terrestrial stage chronostratigraphy, which is based on locally dominated successions, in favour of the marine oxygen isotope stratigraphy which largely records global-scale changes in ice volume. However, it is now clear that glacial records around the world are asynchronous, even at the scale of the continental ice sheets which display marked contrasts in extent and timing in different glacial cycles. Consequently, the marine isotope record does not reflect global patterns of glaciation, or other terrestrial processes, on land. This has led to inappropriate correlation of terrestrial records with the marine isotopic record. The low resolution of the latter has led to a preferential shift towards high-resolution ice-core records for global correlation. However, even in the short term, most terrestrial records display spatial variation in response to global climate fluctuations, and changes recorded on land are often diachronous, asynchronous or both, leading to difficulties in global correlation. Thus, whilst the marine and the ice-core records are very useful in providing global frameworks through time, it must be recognized that there exist significant problems and challenges for terrestrial correlation.
Highlights
From its earliest beginnings, the study of geology has been fundamentally linked to the study of sedimentary strata and their relationship to each other
One of the most striking themes that recurs through the decades has been the desire to equate events identified from local sequences with ‘global’ records. This has happened against the background of repeated paradigm shifts, starting with the Alpine successions of Penck and Brückner (1911), the sea-level chronology of Zeuner (1959) and Evans (1971) and most recently the marine oxygen isotope and polar ice-core stratigraphies
Until recognition of the implications of the marine isotope succession in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Shackleton 1967; Broecker and van Donk 1970; Shackleton and Opdyke 1973; Hays et al 1976) terrestrial evidence formed the foundation for the division of Quaternary time
Summary
It is natural that the first observations of sedimentary sequences and landforms should begin with our observation of the landscape we inhabit. At much the same time there was a realization that shallow marine and coastal sediments in the North Sea and Paris basins and the raised shorelines of the Baltic and Mediterranean regions indicated that sea-level had changed very recently in geological terms From these early observations the development of Quaternary geology, and the realization that climates of the recent past have changed profoundly, has been principally based on the study of terrestrial or shallow marine sediment sequences and landforms. For the stratigrapher to reconstruct past environments accurately, a knowledge of sedimentary processes, based on modern-day observations, is essential These observations must be based on physical, chemical and biological process themselves, and the nature of the sediments formed in a specific situation and the processes involved in preservation of forms and fossil assemblages alike. Instead it is to consider the stratigraphical approaches to terrestrial and shallow marine stratigraphical sequences, both their correlation and age determination
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