About ILSTRAT

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ILSTRAT, the Online Handbook of Illinois Stratigraphy, is maintained by the Illinois State Geological Survey, part of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The purpose of ILSTRAT is to provide a single location in which to find the most up-to-date information on the stratigraphy of Illinois. As ILSTRAT evolves, each webpage will reflect the most current published research on a given geologic unit. This format allows for the addition of maps, cross-sections, core and outcrop photos and more to enhance the text descriptions.

To maintain context for those utilizing old publications or literature, each page contains a Historical tab at the top that will take you to the "historical" description of the unit discussed on that particular page (from ISGS Bulletin 95, or Bulletins 94 and 104 for the Quaternary). In this way, older publications can be more easily interpreted, as previous unit descriptions or units that have been changed or fallen into disuse over time can be put into context, and translated into the most recent understanding. The Historical pages are locked from editing, and represent a faithful digitization of the information in the original Bulletins.

Creation of ILSTRAT

What initially began as a project to capture changes in stratigraphy in Pennsylvanian age stratigraphic units in Illinois quickly morphed into the wiki you see today. The wiki structure was built by Alan Myers, who also oversees its functionality. Editing all initial ILSTRAT entries and layout of pages was completed by Jennifer Obrad.

How to edit ILSTRAT

ILSTRAT is designed to be expanded and refined through cooperative work; it is publicly accessible but not publicly editable.
If you would like to edit or add to ILSTRAT, please contact us to get a login set up at ilstrat@isgs.illinois.edu, and to make contact with relevant ISGS geologists about your contributions.
In this way, we can insure reputable science is presented to the community, and minimize the sometimes messy geologic debates from happening in a public forum.


For a complete rewrite of an entry, you can use our Form:Entry. Otherwise, minor edits can be added to the current page for any unit.
No edits to ILSTRAT, either minor or major, will appear until approved by an internal reviewer.

See our Tutorial for an overview off wikitext syntax and other editing tips.