In this session the Stratigraphy Sedimentology and Paleontology Division (SSP) celebrates the Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal. This year the SSP Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal has been awarded to Donald Ross Prothero for his contribution in the field of stratigraphy and paleontology. A lecture by Donald Ross Prothero will be part of this session.

This session offers stratigraphers, sedimentologists and palaeontologists an opportunity to present papers that do not fall within research areas covered by this year's special themes. The PICO format provides the maximum opportunity to present research on diverse themes to the widest possible audience.

Over the past 500 million years of Earth's history, mass extinction episodes and other extreme environmental changes occurred during times of major volcanic eruptions, sometimes also accompanied by bolide impact events. Causal relationship has been demonstrated using different proxies and approaches, but our understanding of the wider context and nature of environmental changes before, during, and after these events is still incomplete. This session invites contributions presenting the latest advances about the end-Ordovician, Late and end-Devonian, end-Permian, end-Triassic, end-Cretaceous, and other periods of biotic crisis and/or global climate, such as e.g. Oceanic Anoxic Events or the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The goal of the session is to bring together researchers from geological, geochemical, geophysical, and biological disciplines to improve our knowledge of the cause-effect scenario of the five major mass extinction events and other lesser-known events of environmental and climatic crisis.

Maria Bianca Cita can be remembered as a champion of interdisciplinarity. Starting her career as a female geologist in the 1950s, she contributed as a stratigrapher to the definition of the Planktonic foraminifera zonation established in Trinidad in 1957 for the Italian and Mediterranean region, opening the way to the global application of such zonation from the Lower Cretaceous to the Recent. Stratigraphy is essential in drilling, and she was soon invited to join DSDP Leg 2 (1968) as the first non-US Shipboard scientist and one of the two first women scientists on the Glomar Challenger, thus contributing to the definition of sea-floor spreading in the central Atlantic.
With the end of IODP, core materials collected since the late '60s remain in archives and await researchers to unlock their secrets. Thousands of cores from the ocean floor worldwide remain to be examined by micropalaeontologists. These ocean drilling materials are invaluable for producing scientific insight into the evolution of life on Earth over the past 140 million years. The nature of notable global events such as global anoxic events, extinctions, radiations, turnovers, hyperthermals, climatic optima, and global cooling recorded in these sediments can be revealed by micropaleontological study.
Scientific ocean drilling triggered Maria Bianca Cita’s interest in the new (at that time) discipline of Marine Geology, and her research in Italy mostly focused on the stratigraphy and sedimentology of the Mediterranean Sea. With Bill Ryan and Ken Hsü, she formulated on DSDP Leg 13 (1970) the hypothesis of Mediterranean desiccation during the Messinian salinity crisis by studying the foraminiferal microfaunas in the sediments deposited immediately after the end of the salinity crisis, documenting a sudden transition to a deep marine environment. That hypothesis has prompted hundreds of publications across generations.
This session wishes to honor Maria Bianca Cita and her scientific legacy as an incubator of lines of research across disciplines and as an extraordinary teacher for generations of students to whom she gave exceptional opportunities.

Scientific drilling in the ocean and on continents continues to provide unique opportunities to investigate the workings of the interior of our planet, Earth’s cycles, natural hazards and the distribution of subsurface microbial life. The past and current scientific drilling programs of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), the International Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP3) and the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) bring major advances in many interdisciplinary fields of socio-economic relevance, such as climate and ecosystem evolution, palaeoceanography, the deep biosphere, sustainable georesources, deep crustal and tectonic processes, geodynamics and geohazards. This session invites contributions that present and/or review recent scientific results from deep Earth sampling and monitoring through ocean and continental drilling projects. Furthermore, we encourage contributions that outline perspectives and visions for future drilling projects, in particular projects using a multi-platform approach, and present research originated from the use of scientific drilling legacy data.

The Quaternary Period (last 2.6 million years) is characterized by frequent and abrupt climate swings and rapid environmental change. Studying these changes requires accurate and precise dating methods that can be effectively applied to environmental archives. Different methods or a combination of various dating techniques can be used depending on the archive, time range, and research question. Varve counting and dendrochronology allow for the construction of high-resolution chronologies. In contrast, radiometric methods (radiocarbon, cosmogenic in-situ, U-Th) and luminescence dating provide independent anchors for chronologies that span longer timescales. We particularly welcome contributions that aim to (1) reduce, quantify, and express dating uncertainties in any dating method, including high-resolution radiocarbon approaches; (2) use established geochronological methods to answer new questions; (3) use new methods to address longstanding issues, or; (4) combine different chronometric techniques for improved results, including the analysis of chronological datasets with novel methods, e.g., Bayesian age-depth modeling. Applications may aim to understand long-term landscape evolution, quantify rates of geomorphological processes, or provide chronologies for records of climate change and anthropogenic effects on Earth's system.

The study of rock magnetism in both natural and synthetic materials provides valuable insights into the magnetic properties of iron-bearing minerals and their responses to various physical, chemical, and environmental processes.
This session aims to serve as an open forum for the exploration of magnetism in natural materials in its most comprehensive sense. We seek studies that investigate the magnetic properties of minerals found in diverse terrestrial and extraterrestrial rocks. The goal is to apply this knowledge to tackle key challenges in Earth and planetary sciences and broaden the scope of their applications in geosciences.

Currently drylands are home to >40% of the world’s population, and many prehistoric and historic cultures developed in these regions. Drylands are characterized by limited water resources and are highly sensitive towards both human activities and extreme events such as droughts and floods, which affects regional water balances and geomorphic processes. Due to currently intensified climatic and human pressure such processes strongly intensified during the last decades, affecting the living conditions of local populations including freshwater availability from groundwater resources and water quality. However, the functioning of these processes and their feedbacks are poorly understood. To build up reliable future scenarios to achieve sustainable development goals in the future these processes and feedbacks need to be addressed in an interdisciplinary manner on timescales ranging from the Quaternary until today, as well as in future climate scenarios.
This session pools contributions dealing with past to future hydrometeorological, environmental and geomorphological processes understanding in drylands across a broad geographical range since the Quaternary studied on varied spatial and temporal scales. Besides case studies on individual regions and review studies, cross-disciplinary, methodical and conceptual contributions are especially welcome in this session.

Geologic processes are generally too slow, too rare, or too deep to be observed in-situ and to be monitored with a resolution high enough to understand their dynamics. Analogue experiments and numerical simulation have thus become an integral part of the Earth explorer's toolbox to select, formulate, and test hypotheses on the origin and evolution of geological phenomena.

To foster synergy between the rather independently evolving experimentalists and modellers we provide a multi-disciplinary platform to discuss research on tectonics, structural geology, rock mechanics, geodynamics, volcanology, geomorphology, and sedimentology.

We therefore invite contributions demonstrating the state-of-the-art in analogue and numerical / analytical modelling on a variety of spatial and temporal scales, varying from earthquakes, landslides and volcanic eruptions to sedimentary processes, plate tectonics and landscape evolution. We especially welcome those presentations that discuss model strengths and weaknesses, challenge the existing limits, or compare/combine the different modelling techniques to realistically simulate and better understand the Earth's behaviour.

Stable and radiogenic isotopic records have been successfully used for investigating various terrestrial and marine sequences, fossils, evaporative rocks, palaeosols, lacustrine, loess, caves, peatlands. In this session we are looking for contributions using isotopes along with sedimentological, biological, paleontological, mineralogical, chemical records in order to unravel past and present climate and environmental changes or as tracers for determining the source of phases involved. Novel directions using triple isotopes, clumped isotopes, biomarkers are welcomed.
The session invites contributions presenting an applied as well as a theoretical approach. We welcome papers related to reconstructions (at various time and space scales), fractionation factors, measurement methods, proxy calibration, and verification.

INTIMATE (INTegrating Ice core, Marine and TErrestrial records) is a large, diverse, international scientific network interested in better understanding abrupt and extreme climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere during the Quaternary. INTIMATE’s fundamental approach is the synchronisation and comparison of high resolution palaeoclimate and environmental records based on their independent timescales.

Earth history is marked by significant disruptions in global climate, changes in geochemical cycling, and faunal turnover events. The investigation of these events across Earth history is based on accurate and integrated stratigraphy, utilizing a broad range of geological and geophysical techniques, unique stratigraphic features, and established and novel paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental proxies. This session will bring together specialists in all branches of stratigraphy, paleoclimatology, and paleontology, spanning from the Archean to the Holocene. The aim is to introduce new techniques and methods that help improve the stratigraphic and paleoenvironmental toolbox.

This session is organized by the International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification (ISSC) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) and is open to the Earth science community at large

The geological record provides insight into how climate processes operate and evolve in response to different than modern boundary conditions and forcings. Understanding deep-time climate evolution is paramount to progressing on understanding fundamental questions of Earth System feedbacks and sensitivity to perturbations, such as the behaviour of the climate system and carbon cycle under elevated atmospheric CO2 levels—relative to the Quaternary—, or the existence of climatic tipping points and thresholds. In recent years, geochemical techniques and Earth System Models complexity have been greatly improved and several international projects on deep-time climates (DeepMIP, MioMIP, PlioMIP) have been initiated, helping to bridge the gap between palaeoclimate modelling and data communities. This session invites work on deep-time climate, Earth System model simulations and proxy-based reconstructions from the Cambrian to the Pliocene. We especially encourage submissions featuring palaeoenvironmental reconstructions, palaeoclimate and carbon cycle modelling, and the integration of CO2 and (hydro)climate proxies and models of any complexity.

Speleothems are key terrestrial archives of regional to global paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental changes on sub-seasonal to orbital scales. They provide high temporally resolved records which can be accurately and precisely dated using a variety of proxies such as stable O and C isotopes and trace elements. Recent efforts have seen the rise in more non-traditional proxies such as fluid inclusion water isotopes, organic biomarkers, pollen, dead carbon fraction etc.. This advancement towards quantitative reconstructions of past precipitation, temperature, or other environmental variables and climate patterns, are key variables for data-model comparisons and evaluation. Beyond this, caves and karst areas additionally host an enormous suite of other valuable archives such as cave ice, cryogenic carbonates, clastic sediments, tufa, or travertine sequences which complement the terrestrial palaeorecord, and are often associated with important fossils or archaeological findings.
This session aims to integrate recent developments in the field, and invites submissions from a broad range of cave- and karst-related studies from orbital to sub-seasonal timescales.
In particular we welcome contributions from:
(1) (quantitative) reconstructions of past climatic and environmental variables to reconstruct precipitation, vegetation, fire frequency, temperature etc. across different climate zones,
(2) field- and lab-based developments of process-based methods to improve our application of proxy variables,
(3) process and proxy-system model studies as well as integrated research developing and using databases such as SISAL (Speleothem Isotope Synthesis and AnaLysis).
We further welcome advancements in related and/or interdisciplinary areas, which pave the way towards robust (quantitative) interpretations of proxy time series, improve the understanding of proxy-relevant processes, or enable regional-to-global and seasonal-to-orbital scale analyses of the relationships between proxies and environmental parameters. In addition, research contributing to current international co-ordinated activities, such as the PAGES working group on Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and AnaLysis (SISAL) and others are welcome.

Sedimentary systems are excellent archives of past environmental change across the globe and have contributed significantly to our understanding of the Earth’s planetary system. The increasing number of available short and long (ICDP) sediment cores, along with seismic and bathymetric data, continues to be pivotal for assessing climate and environmental change, human activities as well as tectonic and volcanic activity, among others.
We invite contributions that use sedimentological, geochemical, biological, and chronological tools in lake systems and their sedimentary records. Contributions should aim to deduce quantitative and spatial rates of change, causes and consequences of long- and short-term climate variability, and/or assess the impact, magnitude, and frequency of tectonic and volcanic activities in these systems. We particularly encourage submissions about novel analytical approaches (destructive and non-destructive) and data analysis (statistics, machine learning, AI) that guide future research directions in limnogeology.

Minerals formed under surface and burial conditions serve as invaluable archives of Earth’s environmental and geological history. This session explores the field of mineralization and diagenesis, from surface conditions to deep burial, emphasizing the integration of biological, chemical, and physical mechanisms. We invite contributions from a wide range of research topics, including studies on the effects of diagenesis on mineralogy, fluid composition, and mechanical properties, geochemical and isotopic records as environmental archives, and biotic and abiotic mineral formation.

Sedimentary archives can be found across diverse environments worldwide, allowing investigation and disentanglement of past environmental processes over different setting. However, one key limitation in the investigation of such records is deciphering the complexity of how the different forcings acting in a natural system are manifested in the environment and consequently propagated into the studied archives. Interpretations derived from any sedimentary archive thus depend on a our understanding of the surrounding natural system itself and its web of feedbacks, the investigated sedimentary record, and the utilized proxies. Such interpretations often call for the integration of different disciplines, the development of new tools for sampling, novel laboratory methodologies and modelling. These studies need to integrate both modern and recent observations as well as reconciling these with numerical models to improve our predictions of coastal evolution in the future. Combining vast datasets from remote sensing, habitat mapping, geophysical surveys, and in situ monitoring, with advanced analytics and numerical models, provides a holistic view of coastal evolution.

For this session we welcome any contribution that integrates sedimentological, geochemical, biological, and geochronological methods, as well as modelling approaches, novel laboratory experiments and monitoring, for the interpretation of sedimentary systems, with a special focus on mechanism-oriented interpretation. Contributions that either focus on the development and calibration of novel proxies, analytical approaches (either destructive or non-destructive) and data analysis (statistics, machine learning, AI), or present interesting case studies, are welcome as well.

Underwater landscapes, from shallow coastal zones to deep ocean, are shaped by a complex interplay of geologic, biologic, oceanographic and anthropogenic processes. These dynamic interactions create diverse landforms that reveal valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms driving their formation. Understanding these processes, which operate across varying spatial and temporal scales, is essential for assessing offshore geohazards and ensuring the sustainable management of marine environments.
This interdisciplinary session explores the causes and consequences of processes shaping submarine landforms and seafloor evolution. Topics include erosional and depositional dynamics, marine bioconstructions, gravitational driven and current-induced sediment transport, submarine landslides, active deformation, volcanic activity, faulting and folding, and emphasis is given to subseafloor fluid migration and venting at the seafloor. Contributions may address marine or lacustrine environments across all physiographic regions, including coastal zones, marginal seas, continental shelves and slopes, oceanic plateaus, abyssal hills, mid-ocean ridges and accretionary wedges. We welcome studies that integrate diverse approaches, such as satellite-derived and hydroacoustic seabed characterizations, visual and ROV-based observations, seismic imaging and sedimentary, geochemical, and/or geological sampling. Such interdisciplinary studies provide exciting opportunities to advance quantitative geomorphology, extend it offshore, and deepen our understanding of the processes shaping submarine landscapes.

Landscapes are continuously shaped by tectonics and climate across geologic timescales and into the present day. Sedimentary archives therefore offer a unique window providing narratives for how geomorphic systems adapt to external forcings. However, bridging the gap between modern and ancient observations is not straightforward due to preservation, buffering and shredding of environmental signals, requiring integration of both short- and long-term records scattered in landscapes and stratigraphy across time. Likewise, natural hazards, such as floods and slope failures, mobilize large quantities of sediment in short timescales. Yet, their impact on sedimentary systems and landscape evolution can last from the event scale to millions of years. Understanding sediment generation by natural hazards, as well as the interactions between natural hazards and other source-to-sink processes, is important for predicting the response of planetary surfaces to past and future environmental change. This session aims to integrate insights across timescales and methods to understand the sensitivity of modern and ancient landscapes to natural hazards, climate change and tectonic perturbations. It is becoming increasingly clear that in order to unlock projections of landscape change in the future, we must integrate our analysis from source to sink, using insights from modern short-term landscape dynamics to understand stratigraphy, and using long-term geologic approaches to unlock projections of landscape change in the present and future.

Our session will value research which uses quantitative techniques drawing on sedimentology, geomorphology, stratigraphy, geochemistry and modeling and we welcome research on a wide range of hazards including landslides, rockfalls, rock avalanches, debris flows, volcanic eruptions, flooding, tsunamis, and climate warming-induced hazards like thawing permafrost and retreating glaciers. We seek submissions that explore the roles of climate, tectonics, and human impacts on natural hazards and sediment dynamics. We especially encourage studies investigating dynamic feedbacks among natural hazards, sediment routing systems, and human modification of the landscape. The ultimate goal of this session is to improve our understanding of the dynamics of past, present, and future geomorphic systems in response to changes in tectonic and climatic boundary conditions.

The links between crustal deformation, mantle dynamics, and climate-driven surface processes have long been recognized as main drivers for the evolution of orogens and sedimentary basins. Yet, the feedback mechanisms between erosion, sediment transportation and deposition, crustal tectonics and mantle dynamics, including magmatism, remain elusive. Understanding the complex interplay between tectonic and surface processes requires an interdisciplinary approach. Quantifying the uplift and erosion rates in orogens and subsidence and sedimentation rates in basins, and separating distinct crustal, deep mantle, and climatic forcings are among the most challenging objectives, because they all act on a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Understanding such a dynamic system requires observational data from field studies, geophysical and well data analysis, thermochronological studies as well as analogue and numerical modelling techniques.
We invite contributions investigating orogenesis and sedimentary basin evolution and their connection to (climate-driven) surface processes, and crustal and mantle dynamics. We encourage contributions using multi-disciplinary and innovative methods addressing the coupling between tectonics and surface processes.

Continental rifting is a complex process spanning from the inception of extension to continental rupture or the formation of a failed rift. This session aims at combining new data, concepts and techniques elucidating the structure and dynamics of rifts and rifted margins. We invite submissions highlighting the time-dependent evolution of processes such as: initiation and growth of faults and ductile shear zones, tectonic and sedimentary history, magma migration, storage and volcanism, lithospheric necking and rift strength loss, influence of the pre-rift lithospheric structure, rift kinematics and plate motion, mantle flow and dynamic topography, as well as break-up and the transition to sea-floor spreading. We encourage contributions using multi-disciplinary and innovative methods from field geology, geochronology, geochemistry, petrology, seismology, geodesy, marine geophysics, plate reconstruction, or numerical or analogue modelling. Special emphasis will be given to presentations that provide an integrated picture by combining results from active rifts, passive margins, failed rift arms or by bridging the temporal and spatial scales associated with rifting.

The operation of the terrestrial heat engine manifests geologically in ceaseless mass transfer between lithological reservoirs, under the action of tectonic and surface processes. Sedimentary Provenance Analysis is a broad and interdisciplinary field aiming to track these transfers and reconstruct Earth’s evolution on a wide range of temporal and spatial scales by studying detrital mineral grains. This encompasses the geodynamic evolution of mountain belts, paleogeographic reconstructions, changes in climatic conditions, and the tectono-magmatic-metamorphic evolution of planet Earth from the Hadean to present.

Tackling such topics requires disentanglement of inherently convoluted signals, calling for the application of multiple classical and novel methods of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary petrology as well as the statistical treatment of large datasets. This includes, for instance, (i) novel developments in in-situ geo- and thermochronology including double- and triple-dating of single U-hosting grains, and β-decay systems accessed by reaction-gas mass spectrometry (e.g., Lu-Hf and Rb-Sr); (ii) multivariate discrimination of grains from the same mineral species by using flexible algorithms (including machine learning) applied to the major-element, trace-element, and isotopic composition of single grains; (iii) petrological methods such as inclusion assemblages in detrital single grains and elastic thermobarometry; and (iv) statistical methods disentangling differences and patterns in large datasets of multi-proxy provenance data like Generalized Procrustes Analysis or three-way Multidimensional Scaling.

This session welcomes contributions that highlight methodical advances applicable in the interdisciplinary field of Sedimentary Provenance Analysis as well as studies that rely on such methods to tackle problems and answer questions on any temporal and spatial scale, with particular emphasis on bridging micro to macro to planetary scales.

Micropaleontological data, such as assemblage composition, morphology, and evolutionary patterns, provide unique insights into the dynamics and tipping points of past environments and climate through changes in the fossil record. Micropaleontology lies at the heart of biostratigraphy and provides a fundamental tool for reconstructing and stratigraphically constraining past changes in the Earth system. Our session aims to gather a broad spectrum of micropaleontologists to showcase recent advances in applying micropaleontological data in paleoenvironmental, paleoclimatological, and stratigraphic research in both marine and terrestrial settings.
We invite contributions from the field of micropaleontology that focus on the development and application of microfossils (including, but not limited to, coccolithophores, diatoms, dinoflagellates, foraminifera, ostracods, radiolarians, pollen) as proxies for paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatological reconstructions and tools for stratigraphic correlation. We particularly encourage the submission of multi-proxy approaches, merging micropaleontological information with geochemical and paleobiological information. The application of microfossils as stratigraphic markers and advancing multivariate statistical techniques with a focus on microfossil assemblages is encouraged.

Marine and terrestrial ecosystems have been affected by anthropogenic stressors (e.g., biological invasions, eutrophication, climate change, land use change, and overexploitation) for centuries to millennia. By covering only recent decades, scientific surveys and monitoring are insufficient to fully assess human impacts and the long-term ecosystem status. Predicting future changes and effectively restoring degraded communities without knowing past species and ecosystem responses and historical baselines is thus challenging. The fossil record and other palaeoecological archives (e.g., biogeochemical or isotopic signatures of sediment cores and/or archaeological middens) provide long-term data that document past environmental disturbances and their effects on organisms and ecosystem structure (e.g., body size changes, taxonomic and functional composition, diversity patterns). In addition, deep-time palaeoecological records provide analogue scenarios for present-day environmental and climate perturbations, capturing extirpations and recovery dynamics of ecosystems on evolutionary timescales.
Therefore, this session will explore how interdisciplinary approaches to palaeoecological records can enhance the interpretation of the temporal dynamics of past (deep-time and Quaternary) ecosystems and thus provide context and guidance for the near-future dynamics of modern ecosystems. We will address major challenges of interpreting palaeontological and palaeoecological records. For example, a proper understanding of the spatial and temporal resolution of palaeo-archives is needed to reconstruct long-term ecosystem dynamics and historical baselines. It is also crucial to know how the ecological and environmental information preserved in the fossil record is affected by taphonomic biases. Despite these challenges, palaeoecological records are highly useful for conservation and reconstruction efforts. This will be demonstrated by case studies using a wide range of tools and analytical approaches from palaeontology, palaeoecology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, historical ecology, and archaeology.