Historical developments in Wheeler diagrams and future directions

The Wheeler diagram is a type of chronostratigraphic chart and is one of the fundamental instruments available in the geologists' toolkit that is used to understand spatiotemporal relationships of strata. Over the last four decades, these diagrams have continued to improve due to advances in seismic technology. This article examines the historical developments behind Wheeler diagrams, not only stressing their merits, but also their pitfalls and the role that sequence stratigraphic principles have played in interpreting these diagrams. It is emphasized that the diagrams are only complete if one utilizes the thicknesses of a sequence stratigraphic unit (sequence, systems tracts) - a missing dimension that turns a 3D Wheeler diagram into 4D. The article also argues that the latter 4D diagrams represent the future for Wheeler diagrams.