Thematic Set: Recent advances in stratigraphy – a commentary

My 1996 paper concluded in part that ‘the next century will bring more quantitative data, more remote 3D data, greater data processing power, and relatively fewer field geologists. Meeting the future challenges within the fields of exploration and production will need better quantitative stratigraphic tools, a better understanding of stratigraphic processes and rates, both more numerate-geologists and more-numerate geologists, and a better understanding of uncertainty in geological processes. Looking a century ahead, a wish list might include: quantification of stratigraphic uncertainty, predictive models for climate change, predictive models for magnetic reversals, 3D forward models capable of operating at multiple resolutions, 3D inverse models capable of automatically deriving basin history from seismic volumes, and as a result of all these tools, a series of global quantitative palaeoecology maps at 100 kyr/10 km resolution for the Tertiary’.