The Golovkinsky strata formation model, basic facies law and sequence stratigraphy concept: Historical sources and relations

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

[1] This paper reviews in the light of modern knowledge some research results obtained by the outstanding Russian geologist, Professor of Kazan Imperial University N. A. Golovkinsky and described in his remarkable work “The Permian Formation of the Central Kama-Volga Basin”. In this work he introduced, for the first time in the Russian geological literature, the facies concept and the strata accumulation model that was later rediscovered by other researchers to become the basis for sequence stratigraphy. The fundamentals of the facies law, known in the West as Walther’s Law and in Russia as Golovkinsky-Walther’s Law, were also described in Golovkinsky’s work long before Walther drew his conclusions on this subject. The present paper shows that the fundamentals of sequence stratigraphy were first set forth in the work of N. A. Golovkinsky.