Abstract The geological record is a three‐dimensional mosaic of gap‐bound rock bodies that, at any given scale of temporal resolution, were emplaced more or less continuously. At any geographic location, the irregular alternation of processes responsible for the formation and destruction of rock bodies results in the preservation of hiatus‐bound rock packages that have a distinct time of first occurrence (base, or oldest portion), a time of last occurrence (top, or youngest portion), and a suite of defining characters (e.g., lithologies, thickness, fossils, etc.). Many important aspects of the geologic record can be quantified by compiling the stratigraphic ranges of such gap‐bound rock packages. These include the quantity and spatial and temporal distribution of preserved rock, rates of rock formation, sequence stratigraphic architecture, and area‐weighted rates of expansion and contraction/erosional truncation of rock emplacement settings. This approach to characterizing the rock record is scalable, per...