The Past, The Present, and The Future

Abstract

Biochronology and biostratigraphy on the basis of European Tertiary mammals were the subjects of a symposium held in Munich in 1975. Stratigraphers had early recognized that active Neogene tectonism caused Europe to be separated into many isolated sedimentary basins, which in turn caused discontinuities in mammalian distribution and evolution. These very discontinuities were seen as potentially confounding attempts to correlate mammalian localities. As a group, the symposium participants departed from the traditional practice of relating fossil mammal faunal units to marine stages, by proposing independent continental chronologic units. In following years these units were related to marine stages only when there was a physical strati-graphic interdigitation of marine and continental rocks. This practice paved the way to remedy long standing confusion about the age and correlations of Neogene mammal faunas. The newly emergent correlation system has proved quite useful for integrating the tremendous volume of new data from many European countries.