Thanetian
Upper Paleocene age (59.24–56.00 Ma), borrowing the name of fossil-bearing Thanet Sands in southeast England.
Language and route: English geographical toponym adapted in international scientific French. the Isle of Thanet, Kent, England → historical scientific stage-name Thanetian. This is a geographical/eponymic formation, not a Greek life-comparison compound.
Literal gloss: of Thanet
The name and its history
Eugène Renevier · 1873
- What does the word literally mean?
- of Thanet
- What did the original author mean?
- Renevier selected the British Thanet name for part of the youngest Paleocene; Dollfus later restricted the type concept toward the Thanet Sands.
- Why was the name needed?
- British and continental shallow-marine deposits previously grouped under differing Tertiary terms required correlation as successive fossil-bearing intervals.
- What evidence supported the original concept?
- Lithological descriptions and molluscan fossils of the London Basin Thanet Sands were compared with continental marine sections.
- How has geology changed the concept?
- The Thanetian’s lower GSSP is at Zumaia, Spain, based on global magnetic-stratigraphic correlation, not on the geographic limit of Thanet Sands.
Further historical context
Renevier selected the British Thanet name for part of the youngest Paleocene; Dollfus later restricted the type concept toward the Thanet Sands.
British and continental shallow-marine deposits previously grouped under differing Tertiary terms required correlation as successive fossil-bearing intervals.
Lithological descriptions and molluscan fossils of the London Basin Thanet Sands were compared with continental marine sections.
The Thanetian’s lower GSSP is at Zumaia, Spain, based on global magnetic-stratigraphic correlation, not on the geographic limit of Thanet Sands.
Editorial qualification
The name derives from Thanet; any deeper etymology of Thanet is a distinct, unsettled place-name question.
Related names
Paleogene · Paleocene · Selandian · Ypresian · Biostratigraphy
Sources
- International Commission on Stratigraphy, International Chronostratigraphic Chart v2026/06 — Primary authority for present unit names, hierarchy and boundary ages, not first coinages
- North Sea Paleocene synthesis, history of Renevier’s Thanetian (1873) — Describes Renevier’s initial stage and later contraction to Thanet Sands
- Speijer et al. (2020), The Paleogene Period, Geologic Time Scale 2020 — Specialist historical narratives, original regional definitions and modern GSSP revisions