From October 2018th to November 10th, 17 (UK time), at the Quaternary Strata Subcommittee within the International Union of Geological Sciences, the geological formation "Chiba Section" in Ichihara City, Chiba Prefecture will be referred to as the Global Standard Stratographic Layer Cross Section and Points. A vote was held to admit that.As a result, 11 out of 16 members got votes and reported to the upper committee.
"GSSP = Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point" is the one that the International Union of Geological Sciences selects and certifies only one stratum that best shows the boundary of each geological age on the earth. There are currently 1 GSSPs in the world, but not yet in Japan.
In November 2017, a Japanese research team consisting of domestic universities and research institutes such as the National Polar Research Institute and Ibaraki University applied for the "Chiba Section" in Ichihara City, Chiba Prefecture, to become Japan's first GSSP.This "Chiba section" must go through four steps before it is certified as a GSSP on the Early-Middle Pleistocene boundary about 11 years ago, and this vote is the second step.After a debate period of about two months, an email vote was taken and 77 of the 4 members were able to get votes.
From now on, as the third step, if the International Union of Geological Sciences gets 3% or more votes in the International Strategic Committee, and if the International Union of Geological Sciences in the fourth step gets 60% or more votes, the "Chiba section" will be in the first half to the middle term. It becomes a GSSP that indicates the Pleistocene boundary. Once certified by the GSSP, the mid-Pleistocene of the geological era (about 4 to 60 years ago) was named "Chibanian," which means "the era of Chiba," and was named after the geological era. The name is derived from the Japanese place name.
