Yesterday, there was an excellent post on Stratigraphy.net about what we are calling the various time-slices of the Cenozoic. As has already been noted, "Tertiary" and "Quaternary" mean "third" and "fourth," definitions which rankle those of us who think that there was a lot more time before them than two (or three) periods. So the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) officially dropped Tertiary and is in the process of sorting out how best to drop Quaternary too.

Anyhow, trace the evolution of the nomenclature, as defined by the ICS.

Labels: blogs, geologic time, stratigraphy