Increasingly, you are just as likely to find a palaeontologist with a test-tube and lab coat as a chisel and a hard hat. Many otherwise intractable mysteries of the fossil record can be addressed by erecting hypotheses and conducting experiments to test them. However, this kind of approach is not without its pitfalls, in particular a flawed experimental design will inevitably lead to erroneous conclusions. This session will be attractive to a broad audience because of the important deep time palaeontological problems being addressed by the speakers, but also because their work exemplifies best practice in planning, executing and analysing experiments to address such problems – something that is generally not part of the training of palaeontologists, but which many find fascinating.

The session will be open to submissions from any area of palaeontological research employing an experimental approach, including taphonomy, functional morphology, biomechanics, ichnology and palaeoecology.