Lithostratigraphic lexicon of Svalbard. Review and recommendations for nomenclature use / Литостратиграфический словарь Шпицбергена. Обзор и рекомендации по использованию номенклатуры

For the last 15 years or so, Norwegian geologists have been working on the registration and regulation of stratigraphic nomenclature for geological units in Norway. The need for registration and proper definition of stratigraphic names in a central database had long been obvious. With the increase of geological knowledge and literature, the amount of imprecise geological unit names was growing rapidly. Imprecise names in this sense are understood as those not welldefined, or not used according to previously published definitions, or with definitions that are problematic in relation to more recent understanding of the regional geological framework.
A formalisation of the nomenclature was needed in order to distinguish between formally established unit names, informal working names, and traditional names that were not defined according to modern requirements. Especially with the onset of oil exploration on the Norwegian continental shelves, where insufficient geographical names are available, the variety of names grew dramatically, threatening to form a jungle impenetrable for the average, non-initiate scientist. In 1982, the Norwegian Committee on Stratigraphy (Norsk Stmtigrefisk Komitd, NSK) was established by the Norwegian Council of Geology (Norsk Geologirdd). The committee consists of representatives of all major Norwegian geological institutions and oil companies, as well as a representative of the Norwegian Language Council (Norsk sprdkrdq. The committee's first main task consisted of establishing rules and recommendations for naming geological units in Norway, based on international agreements, but specially aimed at Norwegian conditions. This project was successfully completed with the publication of "Rules and recommendations for naming geological units in Norway" in Norwegian (Nystuen 1986) and, subsequently, in English (Nystuen 1989). <...>