“TELECONNECTING” PALEOBASINS: INTRA-, INTER- AND GLOBAL (?) STRATIGRAPHIC CORRELATION – EXTENDING THE POSSIBILITIES

The detailed investigation of high-order temporal correlations of strata in once disparate regions has been limited by traditional lithostratigraphic and biostratigraphic methodologies. In many cases limitations stem from the principal assumptions required for their use. With the widespread use of modern stratigraphic techniques, including: sequence and cyclostratigraphy, event stratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, quantitative paleontologic analyses, and conciliatory models integrating techniques, it is now possible to reinvestigate previous within basin and between basin correlations. The results of these studies suggest a more substantial linkage between local, regional, and even global sedimentologic and paleontologic patterns than were previously established. In most cases, these analyses suggest that the processes driving sedimentologic and biotic transitions in local to regional settings may indeed be connected to coeval transitions elsewhere.

Within this context, the authors highlight a number of studies that document correlations suggesting more than a mere coincidence between emerging patterns. As such we have “exapted” a term first introduced in the investigation of positively or negatively correlated atmospheric shifts across wide regions. These patterns, thought to reflect large-scale changes in climate belts on a variety of short- to relatively long-temporal scales, appear to span entire continents, entire ocean basins, and can even be recognized at global scales. It is not our claim that emerging stratigraphic patterns found in paleobasins are directly governed by the same processes impacting climatic “teleconnection” patterns documented on annual to decadal scales today. We nonetheless suggest that the observed sedimentologic record of paleobasins may also be “teleconnected” and may reflect environmental changes over vast areas resulting from 1) large-scale shifts in climate (due to atmospheric wave and jet stream patterns, temperature shifts, hydrologic shifts, storm tracks, storm intensity, etc.), and/or 2) long-term geologic processes (i.e. mountain building, changes in ocean circulation patterns, and eustatic sea-level change). At the least, these changes may be tied to a range of processes active outside the immediate basin and perhaps even on a global scale.