Proposal to redefine the Quaternary

The following proposal has been circulated, via the Executive of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA), to all INQUA members for discussion. It also appears on the ICS web site (www.stratigraphy.org). Comments may be sent to John Clague, President of INQUA (jclague@sfu.ca), and Brad Pillans(brad.pillans@anu.edu.au).     

Quaternary： status, rank, definition, survival

The long controversy over the term ‘Quaternary‘ as a chronostratigraphic unit may be reaching an apotheosis, judging from recent papers (Pillans and Naish, 2004; Gibbard et al., 2005; and referencest herein). The debate is no longer centered on whether there should be a place in the geological time scale for a unit termed ‘Quaternary‘-despite its dubious past, it cannot be denied that a large body of earth-historical research is strongly identified with this term. The challenge now concerns an appropriate rank and definition of Quaternary with regard to other chronostratigraphic units. Several options have been proposed (Pillans and Naish, 2004), and Gibbard et al. (2005) encourage a debate on these before decision is reached. In this brief note, we describe an arrangement not previously considered that seems advantageous. It is instructive, however, to first review the Pleistocene Series and Neogene System, the two units that are directly affected by introduction of the Quaternary into the chronostratigraphic hierarchy.