ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

International Commission on Stratigraphy

Okay, imagine you have a really big collection of toys. Let's say you have a bunch of dolls, cars, and stuffed animals. Now, imagine you want to organize them in a way that makes sense so you can find what you're looking for easily. That's kind of what the International Commission on Stratigraphy does, but instead of toys, they organize the layers of sediment and rock on our planet.

The planet Earth is really old, and over millions and millions of years, different things happened that left signs in the rocks and sediment. Some of these signs include fossils, minerals, and layers of sediment that were created by things like volcanic eruptions or floods. The International Commission on Stratigraphy studies these layers and tries to put them in order to better understand how the planet has changed over time.

They use something called a geological time scale, which is kind of like a timeline for the Earth's history. This helps scientists and researchers understand when different events happened in our planet's past, like when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth or when the first human beings showed up.

The commission is made up of scientists from all over the world who work together to study and organize the Earth's history. By doing this, they help us better understand where we came from and how we got to where we are today.