The ultimate Geologic Time Scale for the past 100 million years – approaches to synergy between the Time Integrated Matrix for Earth Sciences initiative and the International Commission on Stratigraphy

The Earth's calendar, the geological timescale, provides guidance on periods and events of the past measured in thousands to millions of years. The Time Integrated Matrix for Earth Sciences (TIMES) initiative aims to create an accurate, comprehensive timeline of climatic events from the past 100 million years. The main tool for synchronizing and placing all the targeted geological records on an extremely precise and accurate timeline will be astronomical tuning. It has also improved other stratigraphic methods and is key to calibrating the Geological Time Scale. The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), a body of the International Union of Geological Sciences, functions as the supervisory authority that ratifies Global Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs). GSSPs mark the starting point of a stage, which is a unit of rock strata representing a specific interval of geological time, forming part of the fundamental chronostratigraphic hierarchy of the Geological Times Scale. It seems logical that the efforts of TIMES and the ICS should be combined to create synergy with the goal to construct the ultimate Geologic Time Scale for the past 100 million years. How can this synergy be achieved? Here we will present how the TIMES objectives can help to refine GSSP ages and calibrate ages of events within stages more accurately by providing a detailed age model (astrochronology) for the interval between the base and top of a stage by using the cycles as astronomically dated astrochronozones. Combining astronomy and geology, from the present day back to 100 million years ago, can provide an accurate and precise dated framework with an unprecedented level of detail. This temporal framework will provide the base for the ultimate geological time scale, help to improve other numerical and relative dating methods and, importantly, synchronize archives of regional and global change.