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SUMMARY:The sedimentological impact of evolving land plants\, and why it ma
 tters when studying sedimentary archives on Earth and beyond
DESCRIPTION:Dr Will MacMahon will deliver the ESE Departmental Seminar on 2
 3rd of February 2023: “The sedimentological impact of evolving land plan
 ts\, and why it matters when studying sedimentary archives on Earth and be
 yond”\nJoin us in room G41 – RSM Building – on Thursday the 23rd of 
 February 2023 at 12h10.\nOr on Microsoft Teams: Will MacMahon Seminar\nAbs
 tract\nFar too often sedimentary outcrops are dismissed as being imperfect
  or unreliable. Yet they offer our most accessible record of our planetary
  history\, so it is essential that we continually push to improve understa
 nding of how sediment is generated\, deposited\, or lost. Recent perceptio
 ns of the time-completeness of the sedimentary record have centred on two 
 key points: 1) ancient strata are dominantly a record of commonplace event
 s and therefore provide faithful accounts of ancient processes if properly
  read\; and 2) on Earth\, the record of these processes has changed throug
 h geological time as the biosphere has evolved. By variously mediating flu
 id and sediment properties and rates and scales of erosion\, weathering\, 
 deposition and transport\, organisms can induce sedimentary signatures on 
 scales that range from individual grains to the form of entire mountains. 
 This is nowhere more evident than in the ancient record of land plants\, w
 ith the Paleozoic greening of the continents tied to recognizable shifts i
 n river planform\, global changes in the source-to-sink distribution of fi
 ne-grained sediment\, and even the creation of novel habitats for evolving
  organisms. Earth’s mudrock record additionally holds clues which sugges
 t expanding vegetation reorganized the carbon cycle by enabling new pathwa
 ys in hinterland chemical weathering and mud production\, although this hy
 pothesis has proved controversial. As we increasingly turn our attention t
 o the sedimentary records now accessible on other barren worlds\, determin
 ing the extent to which ancient life shaped our own planetary surface has 
 never been more pressing. As depositional models are largely based on sedi
 mentary environments on Earth\, where physical form and process is likely 
 influenced by biology in some way\, comparisons between terrestrial and ex
 tra-terrestrial sedimentary records require careful consideration before a
 pplication. However\, by avoiding idealistic models based on incomplete in
 formation\, we should be able to work with sedimentary outcrops on Earth a
 nd beyond and consider not what is missing\, but what is possible.\nAbout 
 the Speaker\nWilliam McMahon is a post-doctoral researcher at the Universi
 ty of Cambridge\, who uses the sedimentary record to study some of Earth
 ’s most fundamental evolutionary transitions\, such as the initial emerg
 ence of metazoans and subsequent terrestrialization of the continents. Foc
 used on life’s role in shaping the planetary surface\, he also works wit
 h the sedimentary record of other rocky planets\, considering how terrestr
 ial and extra-terrestrial archives may differ as a consequence of the pres
 ence or absence of ancient forms of life.
URL:https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/158909/the-sedimentological-impact-of
 -evolving-land-plants-and-why-it-matters-when-studying-sedimentary-archive
 s-on-earth-and-beyond/
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LOCATION:Room G41\, Royal School Of Mines\, South Kensington Campus\, Imper
 ial College London\, London\, SW7 2AZ\, United Kingdom
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