StrataBlog

Time for a new timescale

Happy new year and happy new timescale! With the publication of the new Gradstein, Ogg, Schmitz & Ogg Geologic Time Scale 2020, we have a StrataBugs friendly encoding of the new units with their updated ages and colours, which is available to download from our Schemes page. Download the .SBG file, then open Schemes & Interpretations, select Stratigraphic schemes, and press Read… to read it – then press Add Scheme to add it to your database. It will then be available for use in any charts or with well data, or just to compare against previous versions, or your favourite biozone schemes. Please let us know if you spot any errors. Note that the substages in the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic are informal and illustrative. We have not recalibrated any of the “Standard” biozone schemes yet – there is a re-calibration tool in StrataBugs which allows you to do this if you wish, but this is only intended as a starting point, the final schemes should be thoroughly checked!

Note that the timescale which is available from the International Commission on Stratigraphy website, although called the 2020/v3 revision, is actually based on the previous GTS2012 timescale, so don’t get confused! We have called the previous version of this timescale “ICS” to avoid this.