THE EXTINCTION OF PALEONTOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF STRATIGRAPHY: A DISTINCTLY PRE-CENOZOIC PERSPECTIVE

Stable isotope chemostratigraphy of carbon and strontium provide a unique chronostratigraphic tool that has begun to transform the science and art of global chronostratigraphic correlation of pre-Cenozoic strata. Particularly through the integration of high-resolution chemostratigraphy with equally high-resolution biostratigraphy, lithostratigraphy, and sequence stratigraphy, global chronostratigraphic resolution of Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata approaching that of the Neogene can now be achieved. Unfortunately, while pre-Cenozoic geology stands at the brink of the largest stratigraphic revolution since the introduction of seismic stratigraphy nearly four decades ago, the entire enterprise may not be practicable another ten years from now.

To answer 21^st-century questions regarding the rates and nature of changes in the ocean-atmosphere-biosphere system, one must begin with chronostratigraphic control of sufficient detail to address the question being asked. Recently, we have begun to demonstrate that global chronostratigraphic correlation on the order of tens of k.y. can be achieved as far back as the Silurian, and it appears there is no a priori reason such resolution cannot be achieved at least as far back as the Cambrian. Worryingly however, much of the expertise in paleontology and stratigraphy required to achieve such results exists in the minds of researchers either quickly approaching or well past retirement age. The lack of production of new paleontologists and stratigraphers in the past three decades has begun to take its toll as hundreds of years of hard-won stratigraphic and paleontological expertise are facing the real threat of being lost forever.

Paleontology and stratigraphy, in their broadest sense, are the disciplines that decipher the order of events in the stratigraphic record, and without the order, how can anyone pretend to understand the cause-and-effect relationships within the ocean-atmosphere-biosphere system? The paleontological and stratigraphic databases are dynamic sets of data that require constant updating and recalibration and unless the few remaining masters of such artforms can rise with a single voice and begin to reverse this trend, the library of earth history that is the stratigraphic record will be left without librarians.