Much has been written and debated about the various methodologies applied to modern stratigraphic analysis and the ever increasing complexity of terminologies. However, there exist numerous stratigraphic techniques that are reliant upon precise, quantitative, reproducible data, rather than qualitative interpretive stratigraphic methodologies. Such stratigraphic techniques are applied in an entirely pragmatic non-biased manner within the petroleum industry to provide enhanced stratigraphic understanding of petroleum systems. The petroleum industry is a key driver behind the development of new stratigraphic techniques and a major provider of new stratigraphic data, which has resulted in several of these new techniques having been developed as a requirement to the industry. Furthermore, because techniques, such as isotope chemostratigraphy, elemental chemostratigraphy, magnetic susceptibility stratigraphy, numerical biostratigraphy and heavy mineral stratigraphy are based around precise, quantified and reproducible analytical data, they provide an independent means to test the more interpretive stratigraphic methodologies. This volume attempts an overview of stratigraphic methodologies, but largely focuses on data-generative stratigraphic techniques such as chemostratigraphy, magnetic susceptibility stratigraphy, numerical biostratigraphy and heavy mineral stratigraphy. Where appropriate, each paper discusses data generation methods including sample preparation and analytical methods as well outlining data interpretation methods. This is followed by case histories that demonstrate how those data are used to resolve stratigraphic problems, commonly using material derived from petroleum basins around the World.

This book, written by 33 stratigraphic experts, presents various processes available which will enable the location in time of all rock types: sedimentary, metamorphic, plutonic, and eruptive, whether they are in outcrop or at subsurface. The terminology and the appropriate practices for each method are presented in separate chapters and illustrated with concrete examples. The order of the chapters is modeled on the progression of the stratigraphic process, from the descriptive to the interpretative, from the methods of the geometric stratigraphy (lithostratigraphy and genetic stratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy) to the chronological stratigraphy (biostratigraphy), followed by the chronometric stratigraphy (isotopic geochronology). The final two chapters are dedicated to chronostratigraphic units and correlations which combine the contributions of various methods and to the presentation of the 2007 version of the Geological Time Scale. The definitions of stratigraphic terms can be found in a glossary at the end of the work. The book is addressed to all professional geologists, from the industrial sector as well as those in universities, including teachers and researchers who would like to deepen their knowledge of the vocabulary, the concepts, the methods and the practical applications of different approaches of stratigraphy, a reference discipline for the entirety of the geological sciences.

Magnetostratigraphy is best known as a technique that employs correlation among different stratigraphic sections using the magnetic directions defining geomagnetic polarity reversals as marker horizons. The ages of the polarity reversals provide common tie points among the sections, allowing accurate time correlation. Recently, studies of magnetic methods and the timing of geological processes have acquired a broader meaning, now referring to many types of magnetic measurements within a stratigraphic sequence. Many of these measurements provide correlation and age control not only for the older and younger boundaries of a polarity interval, but also within intervals. Thus, magnetostratigraphy no longer represents a dating tool based only on geomagnetic polarity reversals, but comprises a set of techniques that includes measurements of geomagnetic field parameters, environmental magnetism, rock-magnetic properties, radiometric dating and astronomically forced palaeoclimatic change recorded in sedimentary rocks, and key corrections to magnetic directions related to geodynamics, palaeocurrents, tectonics and diagenetic processes --