T237 EARTHTIME Geochronology: Improving Age Interpretations through Integration and Intercalibration

Wednesday, 12 October 2011
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Room 102D-F

THE DIGITAL INTEGRATED STRATIGRAPHY PROJECT (DISP): QUANTIFYING THE DEEP TIME HIGH-RESOLUTION CHRONOSTRATIGRAPHIC REVOLUTION

Paper number: T237-3
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:40 AM – 10:55 AM

Authors

Abstract

The introduction of high-precision techniques (e.g. CA-ID-TIMS) for deep-time radiometric age dating has revolutionized geochronology in the past decade. Similarly, the proliferation of high-resolution chemostratigraphy as a non-biostratigraphic, chronostratigraphic tool, against which multiple biostratigraphic groups can be correlated, has begun to revolutionize deep time global chronostratigraphy as well. If the Cenozoic stratigraphic record of global change has taught us anything, it is that the global ocean-atmosphere-biosphere system operates on very short time scales, and responses to global perturbations typically occur within the ‘Milankovitch band’ (i.e. in less than 400kyr). Therefore, our efforts to decipher deep time global change events must be able to determine the precise order of events to understand cause-and-effect relationships (a chronostratigraphic endeavor), as well as determine the duration and timing of these events to understand rates of change (a geochronologic endeavor). We must be able to determine these parameters with temporal and stratigraphic resolution that meets or exceeds the response time of the Earth to the event under consideration. As a result, if we are to fully evaluate any global change event in Earth history, we must have geochronologic and chronostratigraphic resolution for the global stratigraphic record of the event that is on the order of a few hundred thousand years or less.

The Paleozoic high-resolution chronostratigraphic revolution has demonstrated that global, multi-proxy, typically cm-scale investigations of Paleozoic global change events are required to fully evaluate the cause-and-effect relationships within the Earth system. The practical realities of global, cm-scale, chronostratigraphic research however have historically limited the functional resolution of chronostratigraphic studies. The Digital Integrated Stratigraphy Project aims to eliminate stratigraphic ambiguity associated with sample position within a given outcrop and provide a digital workspace for integrating high-resolution chronostratigraphic and geochronologic data.

The Digital Integrated Stratigraphy Project (DISP) is a component of the International Geoscience Programme (IGCP) Project 591 – The Early to Middle Paleozoic Revolution.