English orthographic guidelines of the NCS by default follow the guidelines of the ICS. Some exceptional deviations are made due to alignment with local customs of the geoscientific community in the national languages.
Formal stratigraphic names
The first letter of each word is capitalised (examples 1, 2, 3, 4), except for the official capitalisation of geographic names.
In enumerations of partial names of units, these are not considered as full proper name, and rules of informal stratigraphic names apply (example 5).
Capitalisation rules also apply to adjectives (example 6).
Other mentions of rank are not capitalised (example 7).
After the complete name of a stratigraphic unit has been mentioned once, part of the name may be omitted if the meaning is clear (example 8).
Examples:
Informal stratigraphic names
Informal names are not capitalised, except for the official capitalisation of e.g. geographic names (examples 9, 10).
Examples:
Chronostratigraphic names
Chronostratigraphic (material deposited in a time interval) and geochronologic (periods of time) names in English follow the English ICS spelling (examples 11, 12, 13).
Geochronologic names do not need to be joined by their rank name (example 14), while chronostratigraphic names do (example 15).
Examples:
Lithostratigraphic names
In English, a lithostratigraphic name consists of a geographical part, followed by a rank part (example 16). The rank part can interchanged by a lithological part if a dominating lithology can be determined and is clearly recognised by the geoscience community (example 17). However, the use of the rank indication is preferable. The geographical component will not be translated.
Examples:
So not “Boom Clay Formation”, although also in use.
Biostratigraphic names
For biostratigraphic units, the taxon part follows guidelines of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature published by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature and the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants published by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy (example 18).
Taxonomic names of generic, subgeneric, specific and subspecific rank are italicised (example 18).
After the first mention, a specific and subspecific taxonomic name may be abbreviated in any way consistent with clarity (example 19, 20).
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