Collaborative ICS-NSF Workshop: Vouchering the Stratigraphic Record

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Stratigraphy is one of the classic disciplines of geology. The stratigraphic record, assembled from outcrops of sedimentary rocks, provided the basis for the concept of "Deep Time", was the foundation for the Geologic Time Scale, and revealed the often-dramatic events in the history of the Earth and life upon it. Stratigraphy is fundamental in the exploration and development of Earth's energy resources with petroleum, natural gas, and coal having formed over time in sedimentary rocks. Stratigraphers have meticulously described and sampled the sedimentary rocks where they are exposed in surface outcrops or penetrated by well borings. Unfortunately, much of that information is not readily accessible. It is scattered worldwide through a great range of local, regional and national publications, in the files of public and private organizations, and in the personal records of a multitude of geologists. Little of it has been placed in computer based, publicly accessible repositories. The time is now to initiate a program of vouchering (archiving) stratigraphic information as it is produced and to compile information gathered in the past. The purpose of the Joint ICS-NSF Workshop "Vouchering the Stratigraphic Record" is to develop the plans for initiating this decades-long program. Stratigraphers have measured and sampled stratigraphic sections worldwide for 150 years. The information gained provided a wealth of evidence for reconstructing Earth"s history and investigating its major events. Information continues to be gathered in ongoing investigations that involve a great diversity of often-integrated methods that allow for fundamentally new scientific questions to be addressed. Unfortunately, a most significant part of the wealth of information generated is not readily accessible to the current community of stratigraphers, and neither is much of the new data being gathered today. Instead, it is dispersed through a great range of publications and files, electronic and hardcopy, personal and public, worldwide. And much of the legacy data is lost from one generation of stratigraphers to the next. This loss seriously limits modern studies of the stratigraphic record and results in a science that is fragmented among various, diverse disciplines or methods, specialists and geographic regions. The solution is for the international community of stratigraphers to establish a publicly accessible stratigraphic repository for all data generated in ongoing and future investigations worldwide and eventually to place legacy data in the repository. To initiate such an ambitious, long-term project requires considerable thought and planning. Accordingly, the proposed ICS-NSF Workshop: Vouchering the Stratigraphic Record is to bring together an international group of experienced stratigraphers representing the full range specialties in order to fully consider all important aspects of initiating this long term project.