Toward a unified and refined Ordovician stratigraphy for the western Yangtze region, South China

Strata equivalent to the majority of the Ordovician shallow-water sediments in South China occur in the western Yangtze region (present-day southwestern Sichuan and northeastern Yunnan, Southwest China), but remain to be properly documented largely due to their inaccessibility. Our research in the past decade has led to the recognition of spatial and temporal patterns, and hence a substan-tial stratigraphic revision of these rocks, with part of the results having been published in a series of papers. Here, we outline a unified and refined Ordovician stratigraphy of the region built chiefly on a summary of these new data, presenting a robust timeframe for explor-ing the environmental and biotic events during the Ordovician on a basin-wide scale in South China. (c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. and Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, CAS. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Our research in the past decade has led to a substantial stratigraphic revision of the Ordovician shallow-water sediments in South China, providing a robust timeframe for exploring environmental and biotic events during this period on a basin-wide scale.