Partition pruning dramatically reduces the amount of data retrieved from disk and shortens processing time, thus improving query performance and optimizing resource utilization. If you partition the index and table on different columns (with a global partitioned index), then partition pruning also eliminates index partitions even when the partitions of the underlying table cannot be eliminated.
Depending upon the actual SQL statement, Oracle Database may use static or dynamic pruning. Static pruning occurs at compile-time, with the information about the partitions accessed beforehand. Dynamic pruning occurs at run-time, meaning that the exact partitions to be accessed by a statement are not known beforehand. A sample scenario for static pruning is a SQL statement containing a WHERE condition with a constant literal on the partition key column. An example of dynamic pruning is the use of operators or functions in the WHERE condition.
Partition pruning affects the statistics of the objects where pruning occurs and also affects the execution plan of a statement.