Research / Geoscience / Language

GSSP

A ratified reference point in a specific stratigraphic section defining the base of an international chronostratigraphic stage.

Language and route: English acronym. Initialism of Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point; colloquially a ‘golden spike’.

Literal gloss: Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point

The name and its history

ICS/IUGS international boundary-standardisation process · Modern system; ICS GSSP registry since 1977

What does the word literally mean?: The initial letters of Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point.
What did the original author mean?: An international boundary-defining protocol: the term refers to a designated physical point in a type section, not simply a fossil or a date on a chart.
Why was the name needed?: Regional age boundaries had been drawn differently by different workers; an agreed physical boundary was required to make the international timescale reproducible.
What evidence supported the original concept?: International review of a continuously exposed section, identifiable markers and potential for long-distance correlation; official decisions of ICS and IUGS.
How has geology changed the concept?: Not every named unit has a ratified GSSP yet. The position of a GSSP fixes a boundary; the fossil or magnetic event used for recognition does not itself become the literal boundary everywhere.

ICS publishes a global GSSP register and has maintained it since 1977. ‘Golden spike’ is an analogy, not the formal expansion of the acronym.

No assertion of a unique individual who first pronounced the acronym; registry inception is not necessarily lexical first use.