The lexicon is the shared vocabulary that lets columns, maps and outside datasets describe rocks in comparable terms: stratigraphic names and concepts, lithologies, environments, intervals and timescales. Nearly every link between Macrostrat's records passes through it.
Geologic lexicon
The parts of the vocabulary, how each is structured, and where it is curated.
Linking data
How map units, column units, fossils and samples are linked through names, location and age.
Knowledge graph
Enriching and checking lexicon records from the scientific literature.
Browse the lexicon
Pages for every term, with the columns and maps it occurs in.
Glossary
Concept: The stratigraphic unit a name refers to, as defined in an authoritative lexicon. Several names may share a concept. See Geologic lexicon.
Environment: A depositional environment (for example, fluvial or carbonate marine) assigned to units.
Interval: A named span of geologic time (an eon, period, stage, zone and so on) with numeric top and bottom ages. Intervals are grouped into timescales.
Lexicon: Macrostrat's controlled vocabularies: stratigraphic names and concepts, lithologies, lithology attributes, environments, economic attributes and intervals. See Geologic lexicon.
Lithology: A rock type (for example, basalt), placed in a hierarchy of group, type and class (mafic, volcanic, igneous).
Lithology attribute: A qualifier of a lithology, such as a sedimentary structure, bedform, grain characteristic or color.
Stratigraphic name: A name for a body of rock (supergroup, group, subgroup, formation, member or bed) as used in a particular place, nested within its parent names.
Timescale: A set of intervals that together divide geologic time, such as the international chronostratigraphic timescale.
