The status of subseries/subepochs for the Paleocene to Holocene: Recommendations to authors and editors

Abstract

Formalization of subseries/subepochs for the Paleocene to Holo-cene has been a long unsettled question within the International Com-mission on Stratigraphy (ICS). Consideration of this matter by an ad-hoc committee over the past year reached a vote that revealed that the community remains divided on the question. The purpose of this arti-cle is to summarize the discussions leading up to the vote, the results of the vote, and the implications of the vote. The publishing commu-nity desires that the question of formalization be settled; so too does the community of Paleogene, Neogene, and Quaternary stratigraphers.Editors regularly ask the ICS about the formalization of subseries/subepochs and, specifically, if the first letter of the unit name should be capitalized (e.g., lower Eocene vs. Lower Eocene). Some editors and authors insist that the units are informal and thus the first letter is not capitalized; other editors and authors use subseries/subepochs as formal units and capitalize the first letter. This inconsistent use has long plagued authors and editors, and it results from ICS not specifi-cally addressing this issue. The result of the vote will inform future discussion of the issue by the ICS.