This conference concerns a Geochemical Society Symposium entitled: "Oxygen and carbon isotopes in Paleozoic and Early Mesozoic marine sediments: toward a global isotope stratigraphy", to be convened Tuesday, October 30, 1990 in conjunction with the National Geographic Society of American meeting in Dallas. This symposium directly addresses the goals of the NSF program on the Geologic Record of Global Change. The development and understanding of a global isotope stratigraphy requires good geographic coverage to separate the regional from the global signal. This in turn requires international involvement. Furthermore, because of the qualitative techniques involved in distinguishing altered from unaltered specimens, international cooperation in sample and data exchange is vital.
