Walther's law of correlation of facies
Ley de correlación de facies (Walther)
- Date
- 1894 · confidence high
- Place
- Jena, Thuringia, Germany
- Credited to
- Johannes Walther
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Johannes Walther formulated that only facies found side by side in a present sedimentary environment can be stacked in a continuous vertical succession. It allows strata to be read as a record of migrating environments, the basis of sequence stratigraphy.
It was stated in his Einleitung in die Geologie als historische Wissenschaft (1893-1894); Gressly defined facies in 1838, and the principle had been intuited by others. The law holds for successions without breaks.
What it led to
- interpretation of sedimentary environments
- sequence stratigraphy