The study and description of the physical character of rocks, particularly in hand speciments and outcrops. Lithology also refers to the physical characteristics of rocks such as rock type, color, mineral composition, and grain size (Boggs, 2001). Lithology and lithofacies are used in sedimentary stratigraphy to interpret, correlate, and map sedimentary rocks.
Lithostratigraphy maps these sedimentary rocks solely on the basis of their lithology and does not necessarily consider that these rocks may have accumulated over a particular period of time.
In contrast allostratigraphy maps the rock units on the basis of the timing of their accumulation. For a more extensive discussion of this topic you are refered to the section on allostratigraphy through the link in the left hand column.
