Abstract:The paper presents personal reflections on the origins and utility of sequence stratigraphic models. These focus on two questions: (1) does sequence stratigraphy represent a revolution in our understanding of the stratigraphic record, and (2) does it provide a new means of global correlation? The f-n-st question is answered in the affirmative, at least insofar as sequence stratigraphy enables us to integrate a wide range of data and interpretations across a huge range of spatial and temporal scales. The recognition of the importance of stratal surfaces has led to a greater understanding of the response by sedimentary to climatic, tectonic and eustatic changes. But it has yet to be shown that eustatic signals can be detected unequivocally in the stratigraphic record. Therefore this 'new global stratigraphy', based on the premise that sequence boundaries are primarily controlled by eustatic changes, is not yet a reality. Testing this hypothesis is beyond the resolution of current biostratigraphic and chronostratigraphic techniques.When I was invited to contribute to the Lyell bicentenary meeting, I was asked to talk about 'Sequence stratigraphy and sea-level change'. It was hardly surprising that 'sea-level change' was included in the title, because over 150 years after Lyell addressed the sea-level controversy, we are still trying to unravel tectonic and eustatic signals from the sedimentary record. But sequence stratigraphy is not just about sea-level change. It identifies genetic packages of strata bounded by time-related physical surfaces: unconformities and their correlative conformities, and surfaces caused by flooding events. Peter Vail and the 'Exxon school' claimed that eustatic sea-level changes are the dominant control on stratal geometries and facies distributions within them. For readers not familiar with it, the sequence stratigraphic approach is summarised in Fig.