stage

The extensive review of the marine invertebrate fauna of the Paris Basin by Deshayes and Lyell not only made possible the formalization of the term Tertiary but also had a more far-reaching effect. The thousands of marine invertebrate fossils studied by Deshayes…

…led to the concept of stages, which was introduced in 1842 by French paleontologist Alcide d’Orbigny. These stages were originally defined as rock sequences composed of distinctive assemblages of fossils that were believed to change abruptly as a result of major transgressions and regressions of the sea. This methodology has…