Sequence stratigraphy encompasses depositional models of genetically related packages of sediments deposited during various phases of cycle of sea level change, i.e., from a lowstand to highstand to the subsequent lowstand. The application of these models to marine outcrops around the world and to subsurface data led to the construction of Mesozoic-Cenozoic sea level curves with greater event resolution than the earlier curves based on seismic data alone.

Construction of these better resolution curves begins with an outline of the principles of sequence-stratigraphic analysis and the reconstruction of the history of sea level change from outcrop and subsurface data for the past 250 Ma. Examples of marine sections from North America, Europe, and Asia can be used to illustrate sequence analysis of outcrop data and the integration of chronostratigraphy with sea level history.

Also important are the implications of sequence-stratigraphic methodology and the new cycle charts to various disciplines of stratigraphy, environmental reconstruction, and basin analysis. The relationship of unconformities along the continental margins to hiatuses and dissolution surfaces in the deep basins must also be explored, as well as the relevance of sequence-stratigraphic methodology to biofacies and source rock prediction.

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