Home – Home – Jornals – Russian Geology and Geophysics 2003 number 7

The history of the term suite has been traced, from an optional to the fundamental stratigraphic unit. In the absence of certain rules for recognizing suites as lithostratigraphic units, the basin (local, regional) stratigraphy came to a crisis. The overwhelming majority of the suites established in the Mesozoic section of West Siberia cannot fulfill the main, correlating, function of stratigraphic unit. Suites cross other stratal bodies, even themselves.
The number of suites snowballs to become information noise. A possible way out of this situation is the use of a system approach, based on the suite as a system, with the resulting principles, requirements, rules, and consequences.
The system approach to recognition of suites drastically reduces their number and provides a safe tool for their unambiguous recognition and tracing (correlation) in the basin section. Any system, including the rock-layered one, is subject to classification, minimization, hierarchic arrangement, etc. according to certain properties.