Proposal for the 5th adjustment and modification of the South African Code of Stratigraphic Terminology and Nomenclature

Summary This paper provides a proposal of guidelines for the removal of offensive and discriminatory names from the terminology used in South African stratigraphy which shall serve as an amendment to the official South African Stratigraphic Code. It further presents a short overview of the activities and developments of the South African Committee for Stratigraphy, its responsibilities, duties and goals. The South African Committee for Stratigraphy (SACS) is a scientific, non-government organisation. It ascribes to the guidelines of the International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification (ISSC) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). SACS regulates the stratigraphic nomenclature and definition of lithostratigraphic and lithodemic rock units and unconsolidated geological deposits and soils in South Africa. In conjunction with the Council for Geoscience (CGS), SACS has established and published the stratigraphic classification and nomenclature of geological units and maintained a database of their attributes and correlates over more than five decades. During this time span, the South African Code of Stratigraphic Terminology and Nomenclature as established in 1971 by SACS, required several amendments in response to new scientific developments. With time, political views have changed, and South Africa became a democratic country. These developments, once more, urgently demand changes to the names of stratigraphic units (and geographic names) as recorded in the “Lexicon of South African Stratigraphy” (Joubert and Johnson, 1998) and in other publications, because of their discriminatory and offending character, sometimes perceived as racist, by various groups of people. However, the necessary changes must be in accordance with the national and international rules of lithostratigraphic and lithodemic nomenclature. To accommodate these changes, it is necessary to amend the official SACS Code of Stratigraphic Terminology and Nomenclature for South Africa. The herewith proposed 5th Adjustment and Modification of the Code of Stratigraphic Terminology and Nomenclature for South Africa reflects the consensus opinion of experts, reached in correspondence between SACS members from academia, the CGS, the Geological Society of South Africa (GSSA) and industry, and was approved at a special SACS meeting on the 12 January 2023, during the GSSA’s Geocongress 2023 at Stellenbosch University. Following on the above, this publication documents the amendment of the Guidelines 1, 3, 4 and 7 of § 3.4 of the South African Code of Stratigraphic Terminology and Nomenclature and sets forth changes related to the process which must be followed for the official approval of new stratigraphic nomenclature in South Africa. Only when the relevant proposal for the renaming of any stratigraphic unit has been discussed and approved by SACS and published in the South African Journal of Geology (SAJG), will such changes become part of the official SACS nomenclature.