The Concept of the Global Cycle Chart

Abstract

The concept of eustasy dates back to the late nineteenth century. The term “eustatic” was coined by Suess (1885–1909) and, as discussed in Sect. 1.4, there was considerable discussion and theorizing about global processes, such as eustatic sea-level change, through the twentieth century. The topic received considerable importance with the development of seismic stratigraphy. One of the major theses of the Vail et al. (1977) work was that cycles of sea-level change can be correlated around the world, signifying that sequences are not a response to local tectonic events but the result of global or eustatic sea-level changes (Fig. 12.1). As noted in Chap. 1, in the early days of seismic stratigraphy, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the global cycle chart was considered an inseparable part of the new methodology.