High-Resolution Event Stratigraphy (HiRES) and the quantification of stratigraphic uncertainty: Silurian examples of the quest for precision in stratigraphy

The ability to resolve the stratigraphic record of Earth history is critical to understanding past global change events and the range of natural variability within the global paleoclimate. The geosphere–hydrosphere–atmosphere–biosphere system operates on geologically very short time scales and we must be able to resolve the stratigraphic record of past events on similar time scales if we are to understand the cause-and-effect relationships operating within the system. Global resolution ≤ 100 kyr is commonly available when evaluating events from the Cenozoic Era, but such resolution is less common for older portions of Earth history. The introduction of High-Resolution Event Stratigraphy (HiRES) more than two decades ago revolutionized the ability to resolve the Mesozoic and Cenozoic stratigraphic records of global change, and a similar revolution is currently underway for the Paleozoic as well. Here, we review the application of the principles of HiRES to the Paleozoic stratigraphic record with examples from the Silurian System, discuss the quantification of chronostratigraphic uncertainty, and highlight the current deep-time Earth history revolution that has the potential to open the entire Phanerozoic record to the evaluation of short time scale global climate dynamics.