Microorganisms (bacteria and archaea) are widely suggested to influence the formation of minerals. But how do we know? Is the evidence for microbial involvement in mineral formation truly robust in every case?

The mechanisms by which microorganisms may affect mineral formation are diverse: do they simply alter their environment through metabolic activity, driving the surrounding fluid to supersaturation with respect to a particular mineral phase? Or can they mediate the nucleation and growth of a mineral that is already supersaturated in the fluid but whose formation is kinetically inhibited? And how might these different processes manifest in the sedimentary record?

These controversial questions call for an open and unbiased debate. This Geopanel provides a forum for such a discussion from a multidisciplinary perspective, bringing together panellists representing mineralogical, geochemical, microbiological and sedimentological viewpoints.

The aim is not to promote a particular interpretation, but to critically examine the evidence, clarify the mechanisms involved, and develop a more differentiated understanding of the role of microorganisms in mineral formation — helping the field to build a stronger scientific foundation.

This session offers to stratigraphers, sedimentologists and palaeontologists an opportunity to present works 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, Earth has experienced multiple episodes of profound perturbations to climate, biogeochemical cycles, and ecosystems. Proxy records and multidisciplinary approaches have revealed compelling temporal and causal links between these environmental perturbations and major volcanic episodes, bolide impacts, and other enigmatic events. However, our understanding of the wider context and nature of environmental changes before, during, and after these perturbation intervals remain incomplete. This session invites contributions presenting the latest research advances on the end-Ordovician, Late and end-Devonian, end-Permian, end-Triassic, end-Cretaceous mass extinctions, and other periods of biotic crisis and/or global climate, such as Oceanic Anoxic Events or the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. We welcome research spanning geology, geochemistry, geophysics, paleontology, and biology that investigates causes, environmental responses, ecosystem collapse, resilience, and recovery across these critical intervals of Earth history.

Research in stratigraphy, sedimentology and paleontology has wide-ranging implications for society, from renewable energy applications to geoheritage conservation, and policy decisions pertaining to conservation and hazard management. While this societal relevance has been increasingly recognized, dedicated venues for showcasing this translation of research into practice remain limited. This session aims to address a pertinent question: what can stratigraphy, sedimentology and palaeontology offer to decision-making, conservation policies and industry? In doing so, it seeks to foreground the intersection of academic research with societal application. Contributions may address, but are not limited to:
1. The role of these fields in geoheritage conservation
2. Paleontology and paleoecology in environmental conservation
3. Stratigraphy and sedimentology in hazard management and resource mitigation in the context of climate change
4. Stratigraphy, sedimentology and paleontology in renewable energy management and sustainable mining
While many studies touch on societal themes more broadly, this session places particular emphasis on research that can demonstrate a clear pathway from scientific evidence to practical applications in policy, conservation, environmental management or industry. We particularly welcome contributions that illustrate how databases, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data workflows, methodologies, or specific research outputs can play a concrete role in decision-making and/or industry applications, thereby facilitating the translation of research into practical applications.

Throughout Earth history, carbonate sediments have formed and been deposited in a wide range of marine and non-marine settings via the complex interplay of biological, chemical and physical processes. The carbonate sedimentary record is essential for determining past global change and understanding the complex interactions between climatic processes, oceanographic and environmental changes, the evolution of the biosphere, stratigraphic architecture development and subsequent diagenetic processes. The complementary study and understanding of present-day carbonate depositional system processes is crucial to the interpretation of the stratigraphic record and the application of carbonate archives to future pathway predictions.

In recent years, technologies based on Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as image processing, smart sensors, and intelligent inversion, have garnered significant attention from researchers in the geosciences community. These technologies offer the promise of transitioning geosciences from qualitative to quantitative analysis, unlocking new insights and capabilities previously thought unattainable.
One of the key reasons for the growing popularity of AI in geosciences is its unparalleled ability to efficiently analyze vast datasets within remarkably short timeframes. This capability empowers scientists and researchers to tackle some of the most intricate and challenging issues in fields like Geophysics, Seismology, Hydrology, Planetary Science, Remote Sensing, and Disaster Risk Reduction.
As we stand on the cusp of a new era in geosciences, the integration of artificial intelligence promises to deliver more accurate estimations, efficient predictions, and innovative solutions. By leveraging algorithms and machine learning, AI empowers geoscientists to uncover intricate patterns and relationships within complex data sources, ultimately advancing our understanding of the Earth's dynamic systems. In essence, artificial intelligence has become an indispensable tool in the pursuit of quantitative precision and deeper insights in the fascinating world of geosciences.
For this reason, aim of this session is to explore new advances and approaches of AI in Geosciences.

In March 2024, the proposal to formalize the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch was rejected (IUGS 2024). This decision constitutes a turning point in debates on the Anthropocene that have been ongoing for more than two decades.
Initially proposed by Paul J. Crutzen in 2000, the Anthropocene was conceived as a new geological epoch dominated by human activities, marking the end of the Holocene (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000; Crutzen 2002). Since then, it has generated numerous debates across the natural and social sciences and beyond (Benner et al. 2021; Bohle et al. 2025), including opportunities to reconsider relations between humans and nature inherited from modernity (Latour 2017).
The Holocene therefore remains the geological epoch in which we officially live (IUGS 2024). Yet the transformations that gave rise to the Anthropocene debate have not disappeared. Anthropogenic global change continues, including climate change and transformations associated with the Great Acceleration (Steffen et al. 2015; Head et al. 2022). We thus continue to live geologically in the Holocene while researchers across Earth system sciences, social sciences, and the humanities investigate the Anthropocene (Thomas, Williams, and Zalasiewicz 2020; Rockström et al. 2026). Recent debates following the 2024 decision further demonstrate that the scientific discussion remains open (Waters et al. 2026; Zhou and Bertini 2026; Zalasiewicz et al. 2026; Merritts and Walter 2026).
This situation invites us to ask: What should we now do with the Anthropocene? What is the relevance of the Holocene in a time of anthropogenic global change? What kinds of interdisciplinary research can emerge from these debates?
Rather than reopening the institutional vote itself, this session provides an open space to examine geological evidence and arguments surrounding the proposed Anthropocene–Holocene boundary, their implications within and beyond geology, and new interdisciplinary horizons for the social sciences, education, philosophy, the humanities, and geoethics (Wallenhorst and Wulf 2023; Renn 2021; Bohle et al. 2025; Colombo 2026).

Scientific drilling, both marine and continental, provides a unique window into Earth’s interior, surface processes, paleoclimates, natural hazards and the distribution of subsurface microbial life. 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) continue to drive major advances in interdisciplinary fields of socio-economic importance, including climate and ecosystem evolution, palaeoceanography, the deep biosphere, sustainable georesources, crustal and tectonic processes, as well as geodynamics and geohazards. This session invites contributions that present or review recent scientific results from deep Earth sampling and monitoring through drilling projects. Furthermore, we welcome submissions outlining visions for future drilling projects, as well as new research emerging from scientific drilling legacy data.

Earth’s history is characterized by periodic fluctuations, long-term trends and abrupt changes in major climatic systems, as well as biotic turnover and evolutionary events. To investigate and understand these changes, researchers need to accurately resolve geological time in stratigraphic records.
This session invites (chrono)stratigraphers, paleoclimatologists and paleontologists that focus on paleoclimatic records from the last 100 million years of Earth's history. The main objective is to introduce new stratigraphic tools and methods, integrated multiproxy records, as well as educational platforms and databases designed to integrate the various aspects of geochronology.
The session will also present the efforts and outcomes of “The Time-Integrated Matrix for Earth Sciences” (TIMES), an international initiative bringing together a large community of researchers working in stratigraphy and paleoclimate proxy development. The goal of this 10-year project is to recalibrate global climate records from the last 100 million years on a unified high-resolution timeline using astrochronology.

The uncertainty associated with stratigraphic correlations and numerical ages of sedimentary successions increases with time, hampering our understanding of forcing factors of past climate changes and their consequences for paleoecosystems. Stratigraphic correlations and time scale refinement beyond 100 Ma face unique challenges, including increasing uncertainties on radiometric ages, a lack of astronomical solutions, and the potential for non-actualistic processes. These issues are further exacerbated in terrestrial and coastal strata, complicating the construction of terrestrial-to-marine correlation schemes. Apparent disagreement may exist between inferred ages, durations and correlations, depending on the region and the methodology. The ‘pre-100 Ma’ world remains beyond the ambitious time scale refinement effort of the TIMES (“Time Integrated Matrix for Earth Sciences”) initiative for now.
At the same time, the past decade has seen rapid improvements in the pre-100 Ma geologic time scale, as well as our understanding of global events anchored to it. Especially for these older strata, a fully integrated stratigraphic approach, aiming at more robust correlations across geologic settings, is crucial.
Here, we propose a session to gather the efforts to advance the dating of sedimentary series older than 100 Ma using different approaches, including geochronology, astrochronology, chemostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, event stratigraphy, and numerical modelling; as well as methods to improve correlations at global scales at an increasingly higher time resolution and between marine and terrestrial records. This session aims to foster constructive discussion on how we can progress as a deep-time stratigraphic community, and we welcome researchers from all career stages. Studies working on an integrated approach and aiming at constructing a converging time scale for different geological periods beyond 100 Ma are particularly encouraged.

This session aims to bring together multidisciplinary perspectives on the interplay between microbial activity, sedimentary processes, and geochemical signatures in lacustrine and marine environments, both modern and ancient. We seek contributions that explore how microbial metabolisms influence mineral formation (e.g., carbonates, clays, sulphates) how isotopic and molecular biosignatures record biogeochemical processes, and how sedimentary archives can be interpreted to reconstruct past environmental and climatic conditions.

We particularly encourage submissions that combine natural systems with experimental analogues, including laboratory simulations of mineral precipitation, microbe–mineral interactions, and environmental gradients. Studies integrating field observations, experimental data, and cutting-edge analytical or computational approaches (e.g., spectroscopy, synchrotron techniques, geochemistry, stable isotopes, machine learning) are especially welcome.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
• Microbially mediated mineral precipitation in lacustrine and marine systems
• Early diagenesis and biosignature formation: field, lab, and model approaches
• Stable isotope systems as proxies for microbial and environmental processes
• Experimental analogues simulating early Earth, Mars-like, or extreme environments
• Sedimentary and geochemical archives for paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental reconstructions
• Integration of microbial ecology, mineralogy, and geochemistry to assess biogeochemical feedbacks
• Applications to the search for early life and biosignatures in the geological record and planetary contexts

Establishing reliable chronological frameworks is fundamental to the interpretation of sedimentary records and to reconstructing the timing, duration and rates of geological and environmental processes. Sedimentary archives span a wide range of timescales and depositional environments, and their chronological characterization often requires the integration of different dating techniques and stratigraphic approaches. However, the accuracy, precision and applicability of these methods may vary depending on the material, age range, depositional setting and preservation of the sedimentary record. This session aims to bring together researchers working on the development and application of absolute and relative dating techniques, geochronology and chronostratigraphy in sedimentary successions across different timescales. We welcome contributions using a broad range of approaches, including radiocarbon, luminescence, cosmogenic nuclides, tephrochronology, magnetostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, chemostratigraphy, cyclostratigraphy, event stratigraphy and other chronological and stratigraphic correlation methods.
Particular attention will be given to studies integrating multiple dating techniques, comparing independent chronological constraints, improving age models and stratigraphic correlations, and addressing methodological limitations, uncertainties and potential biases. We also encourage contributions presenting methodological advances, novel chronological markers, innovative analytical or modelling approaches, and strategies for dating challenging or discontinuous sedimentary records and contributing to environmental and paleoclimatic reconstructions.
Applications from terrestrial, lacustrine, fluvial, coastal and marine environments are welcome, from recent and Quaternary deposits to deep-time sedimentary successions. By bringing together geochronologists, stratigraphers, sedimentologists and researchers from related disciplines, this session seeks to promote interdisciplinary discussion on how different chronological approaches can be integrated to improve our understanding of time in the sedimentary record and its application to geological, palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic research.

Accurate reconstructions of sea surface, bottom water, and continental surface temperatures during the Cenozoic era are essential for understanding climate dynamics in the geological past, particularly under warmer-than-present conditions. However, producing robust and precise paleotemperature estimates remains inherently challenging. Temperature proxies are subject to a range of geochemical, biological, environmental, and analytical uncertainties, which lead to discrepancies in both absolute and relative temperature estimates across different methods. These limitations hinder efforts to synthesize globally representative paleotemperature records and to constrain the rates and magnitudes of global temperature changes in response to both abrupt and long-term changes in atmospheric CO2.

Addressing these challenges requires new approaches, including improved proxy calibrations, and more comprehensive inter-proxy and proxy-model comparisons, to obtain a better understanding of the uncertainties associated with paleotemperature reconstructions. In this session, we welcome contributions that push the boundaries of Cenozoic paleotemperature research, including new multi-proxy and multi-site temperature reconstructions, new advances in proxy ground-truthing, applications, and calibrations, and novel modelling perspectives on paleotemperature changes. By bringing together the diverse community using proxy and modelling techniques, we seek to increase the robustness of Cenozoic ocean and terrestrial temperature reconstructions. Ultimately, this will improve our understanding of Earth’s climate system and its behaviour during warmer-than-present states.

The Geological Time Scale (GTS) is the result of centuries of observation, curation, and quantification of the stratigraphic record. The forthcoming iteration of the GTS, GTS2030, aims to begin the process of moving the GTS towards a broader audience, connecting domain scientists, data resources, and community organizations to develop a new modality of open science GTS construction. This session invites geochronologists, paleontologists, stratigraphers, astrochronologists, age modelers, data scientists, programmers, users of the Geologic Time Scale, anyone else interested in the next iteration of the GTS to submit an abstract. Best practices for open science, FAIR data system for the GTS are also welcome.
This session is organized by the International Subcommission on Timescale Calibration (ISTC) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS).

This session invites contributions that advance a comprehensive understanding and quantification of climate shifts across multiple timescales, from local to global scales. Submissions may highlight new (multi-)proxy reconstructions from diverse archives, chronological improvements, emerging statistical approaches, and/or climate simulations that help identify, quantify, and interpret transient vs. abrupt climate changes across Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles.

The session welcomes participants beyond the INTIMATE network who contribute to its central aims: progress on relative or absolute chronological methods, the reduction of reconstruction uncertainties, multi-site integration towards common timescales (e.g., to the Greenland event stratigraphy), a dedicated use of model-data or multi-proxy comparisons to disentangle climate or ecosystem signals, and exploring teleconnections, i.e., linking impacts to different climate system components across time and space.

We particularly invite studies that improve our understanding of atmosphere–ocean linkages of extreme climate events (e.g., AMOC weakening), those that seek to separate signals of changing seasonality and/or temperature vs. hydroclimate and their implications on past societies, as well as ecosystems. Where applicable, we encourage contributions that reflect on the potential implications of past climate shifts for: (1) understanding future climate change; (2) assessing impacts on terrestrial ecosystems and societies; and (3) identifying links between extreme climate states on land and changes in ocean circulation, external forcing, internal climate variability, or volcanic activity.

Icehouse conditions have characterized the evolution of Earth's surface over multiple timescales. Their recurrence and intensity are paced by the interplay among surface and deep-seated processes, as well as astronomical forcing. Under colder climate conditions, landscapes are modified by the physical action of ice masses, including polar ice sheets, high-elevation and high-latitude ice caps, and valley glaciers. Each stage of landscape evolution can be traced through erosion of the substrate beneath and around the ice bodies, and through the subsequent transport and deposition of eroded material. Tracing these sediment-routing pathways is a key tool for understanding past and present ice dynamics.
Through numerical modeling of sediment and provenance proxies, it is possible to investigate how glacial landscapes are eroded and evolve in response to climate variability and tectonics through time.
We especially welcome contributions focusing on, but not limited to, the Cenozoic, encompassing the development of high-latitude polar environments and the recurrent advances and retreats of mountain glaciers during the Quaternary. We encourage studies employing approaches that bridge sedimentology, geomorphology, and related disciplines, including cosmogenic nuclides, thermochronology, detrital geochronology, geochemical provenance tracer, and petrographic and mineralogical characterization of grains. Contributions integrating these techniques with remote sensing, GIS-based analyses, and numerical modeling are encouraged.

The source-to-sink (S2S) approach is a fundamental, comprehensive method in sedimentary geology, offering a strong framework to understand the full journey of sediment from continental source areas to deep-sea basins. These sediment routing systems serve as invaluable records, capturing the complex interaction between external forces, such as climate, sea-level changes, tectonics, and Earth's internal surface processes. By examining the entire sediment continuum, researchers can uncover key information about landscape development, basin evolution, ancient environments, and sediment provenance. The vast and active landscapes of Asia and Oceania, shaped by active mountain-building, strong monsoonal weather, and major sea-level shifts, provide an exceptional natural laboratory for deepening our grasp of these complex Earth systems. Despite its power and widespread use, the S2S approach faces ongoing challenges that can reduce its predictive accuracy. Significant uncertainties still exist when trying to connect different spatial and temporal scales, from grain-scale processes in a catchment to the basin-scale stratigraphic architecture built up over millions of years. Combining diverse datasets and accurately measuring the influence of various forces on the sedimentary record remains a major obstacle. These scaling, resolution, and process-related challenges can cause unquantified risks in geological models, highlighting the urgent need for a dedicated platform to gather recent advancements and promote a more reliable, quantitative, and reproducible S2S science.
This session aims to address these challenges by showcasing the latest advancements in S2S research across Asia and Oceania. We welcome the submission of interdisciplinary studies that highlight recent advancements in perspectives, methods, and applications. The session will span the breadth of S2S research with contributions that utilize multi-proxy approaches including geophysical data, numerical and analogue modelling, sedimentary provenance analysis, and field observations to develop a comprehensive understanding of sediment routing systems. By promoting diverse research that links S2S dynamics to urgent global issues such as sustainable geoscience, energy transition, geohazard mitigation, and climate change, this session will not only deepen our fundamental understanding of Earth surface processes but also underscore the vital role of S2S science in addressing contemporary societal challenges.

The clastic sediment archive records the transfer of material between lithological reservoirs, mediated by surface processes. Sedimentary provenance analysis aims to reconstruct these transfers across a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, from sediment generation and routing in modern landscapes to paleogeographic reconstructions, the evolution of mountain belts, past climatic and erosional conditions, and the tectono-magmatic-metamorphic evolution of Earth through deep time.

However, the relationship between source rocks and resulting sediment is inherently complex. Weathering and erosion control the initial composition of sediment, while transport and depositional processes such as abrasion, mixing, hydraulic sorting, intermediate storage, and dissolution may further modify its composition. Disentangling these processes requires both an improved understanding of source-to-sediment relationships and increasingly sophisticated analytical and quantitative approaches.

This session brings together studies addressing both aspects of this challenge. We invite contributions investigating sediment generation, source-to-sediment relationships and deep-time reconstructions using observations from natural systems, experiments, and numerical models, as well as methodological advances in sedimentary provenance analysis. These may include petrographic and textural approaches; single-grain geochemistry, isotopic analysis, geo- and thermochronology; mineral inclusions and thermobarometry; fingerprinting and multi-proxy provenance approaches; and statistical, computational, and machine-learning methods for analysing increasingly large and complex datasets.

Lakes and their sedimentary systems are excellent continuous and high resolution 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 sediment cores, in particular from ICDP (International Continental Scientific Drilling Program), 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, from small ponds to deep large basins across all timescales. 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 and landscape changes in their catchments on 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 are formed in great diversity under Earth surface conditions, as skeletons, microbialites, speleothems, or authigenic cements, and they preserve a wealth of geochemical, biological, mineralogical, and isotopic information, providing valuable archives of past environmental conditions. Interpretion of these archives requires fundamental understanding of fluid-rock interaction processes, but also insights from the geological record.

In this session we welcome oral and poster presentations from a wide range of research of topics, including process-oriented studies in modern systems, the ancient rock record, experiments, computer simulations, and high-resolution microscopy and spectroscopy techniques. We intend to reach a wide community of researchers sharing the common goal of improving our understanding of the fundamental processes underlying mineral formation, which is essential to read our Earth’s geological archive.

Speleothems are key terrestrial archives of regional to global palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental changes on sub-seasonal to orbital timescales. They provide high temporally resolved records which can be accurately and precisely dated using U–Th or U–Pb techniques in combination with a variety of proxies such as stable O and C isotopes and trace element ratios. 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 for data-model comparisons and further evaluations. Beyond this, caves and karst areas additionally host an enormous suite of valuable proxy 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, historical or archaeological findings.

This session aims to integrate recent developments in the field and invites abstract 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 explore precipitation, vegetation, fire frequency, and temperature changes across different climate zones;
(2) field- and lab-based developments of process-based methods to improve the application of cave and karst-related proxy variables;
(3) developments in chronological methods and their applications;
(4) process and proxy-system model studies as well as integrated research on 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.

Chemical reactions between fluids and minerals continuously reshape porous and fractured rocks. Dissolution, precipitation, cementation, and mineral replacement alter pore geometry and connectivity, changing the pathways through which fluids and solutes reach reactive sites. The resulting feedbacks between reaction and transport can amplify or suppress heterogeneity and generate recognizable structures across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. This can be illustrated by acidization wormholes, karst networks, reactive melt channels in magmatic rocks, and diagenetic features such as concretions, reaction fronts and precipitation and/or dissolution patterns.

The underlying challenge is common to all of them: how reactions in individual pores become expressed as large-scale patterns and as changes in porosity and permeability — a question shared across sedimentology, geochemistry, hydrology, petrophysics, and geophysics. It matters wherever reactive flow must be predicted or engineered: carbon storage and mineralization, hydrogen production, geothermal energy, hydrocarbon recovery, nuclear waste repositories, and contaminant transport and remediation.

This field covers approaches, methodologies, and scales of a wide variety. X-ray imaging, microfluidics, and other in situ methods now resolve local mineral reactions as the geometry of the medium evolves. Computational advances bridge pores, fractures, laboratory samples, and field systems. Rock record study shows how these processes accumulate and interact over geological time, on timescales no experiment can reach.

Thereby, we invite contributions on reactive transport and diagenesis from experiments, field observations, theory, and computation. Studies may address dissolution, precipitation, cementation, mineral replacement, authigenesis, water-rock interaction, or biogeochemical transformations. They should investigate the consequences of these processes on porosity, permeability, flow localization, and pattern formation. Work at any scale is welcome; from single pores and table-top experiments to hydrogeological systems and sedimentary basins.

The Antarctic continent contains approximately 10% of Earth's least understood continental crust, much of it hidden beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Yet this concealed lithosphere exerts a fundamental influence on geothermal heat flow, subglacial hydrology, sediment and nutrient fluxes, ice-sheet behaviour, ocean productivity, and climate feedbacks. Understanding Antarctica therefore requires a truly interdisciplinary perspective that links solid Earth processes with the cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere. This session provides a forum for the newly approved SCAR Scientific Research Programme Antarctic Geosphere Evolution (AGE), which aims to advance understanding of Antarctica's four-dimensional lithospheric evolution and its interactions with Earth-system processes. We welcome contributions spanning geological, geophysical, geochemical, biological and modelling approaches, particularly studies that bridge traditional disciplinary boundaries. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
• Antarctic lithospheric architecture and tectonic evolution
• Geodynamics, mantle structure and geothermal heat flow
• Lithosphere-cryosphere coupling and ice-sheet dynamics
• Subglacial hydrology and groundwater systems
• Sediment, dust and nutrient fluxes from Antarctica to the Southern Ocean
• Provenance studies and reconstruction of the hidden Antarctic continent
• Interactions between geological processes, marine productivity and biogeochemical cycles
• Integration of geological, geophysical and geochemical datasets
• Integration of Antarctica’s components in full-plate reconstructions and computational tectonics.
The session particularly encourages studies that develop new connections between disciplines and improve understanding of how Antarctica's lithosphere influences the wider Earth system across spatial and temporal scales.

Skeletal remains, like shells, ossicles, corals, bones, or fish otoliths, are valuable archives of physical, chemical, or paleogenetic information, helping us understand ecological and environmental changes over periods ranging from decades to millennia, whether on land or in the ocean. This session invites researchers who employ these archives to reconstruct changes in species and ecosystems in relation to climate variability and/or human impacts across both the deep time and the recent past. We encourage contributions that focus on biotic interactions, species and community dynamics, sclerochronology, isotope geochemistry, trait-based analyses, morphometric approaches, and ancient DNA/sedimentary DNA, in particular conservation-oriented case studies that combine data from modern biota and fossil remains. Complementary paleoecological archives—such as biogeochemical and isotopic signatures from sedimentary succession or archaeological middens—are also welcome, primarily when they document histories of environmental disturbance and its ecological consequences. We also welcome paleobiogeographic reconstructions that explore range shifts, corridor/barrier dynamics, and distributional disequilibria to inform how species’ spatial patterns have responded to past environmental change. In conclusion, by examining long-term records, we can gain insights into the potential consequences of present-day environmental stressors and climate change, reconstruct past dynamics of species and ecosystem changes, including extinction, recovery, and biogeographic shifts, and thus obtain valuable insights that can help us sketch the near-future trajectories of contemporary ecosystems.

Micropaleontological data provide unique insights into the dynamics and tipping points of past environments and climates through changes in the fossil record, including assemblage composition, morphology, and evolutionary patterns. 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 bring together a broad spectrum of micropaleontologists to showcase recent advances in the application of micropaleontological data to 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, conodonts, and pollen) as proxies for paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatological reconstructions and tools for stratigraphic correlation. We particularly encourage submissions of multi-proxy approaches that merge micropaleontological, geochemical, and paleobiological information. The application of microfossils as stratigraphic markers and the advancement of multivariate statistical techniques with a focus on microfossil assemblages are encouraged.

Throughout Earth’s history, large explosive volcanic eruptions and asteroid impacts have episodically perturbed the Earth system, driving major climate disruptions with profound consequences for the biosphere. These events can modify atmospheric composition, perturb Earth’s radiative balance, trigger abrupt surface cooling, weaken the hydrological cycle, alter ocean circulation and biogeochemistry, suppress terrestrial and marine productivity, and generate cascading effects across ecosystems and food webs. Such environmental changes may further shape the evolutionary trajectories of species, including humans.

One notable example is the Chicxulub impact about 66 million years ago, which generated a global impact winter and almost certainly triggered the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction. Another example is the Toba supereruption about 74,000 years ago, which likely caused substantial climatic effects and may have affected human populations. However, the magnitudes, timescales, spatial patterns, and underlying mechanisms of climate and biosphere responses to major perturbations remain incompletely understood and actively debated.

This session invites contributions that investigate how major perturbations—including volcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, and other abrupt climatic events of varying magnitudes—affect the climate system, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and the evolution of mammals and humans across a wide range of timescales and regions. We welcome theoretical, observational, proxy-based, and modeling studies from multidisciplinary perspectives spanning volcanology, planetary science, climate science, paleoclimatology, ecology, archaeology, and paleoanthropology.

The Arctic is undergoing rapid climate and environmental change, but understanding the processes driving this transformation requires a longer-term perspective. Marine sediment archives preserve evidence of past changes in ocean circulation, sea-ice conditions, ice-sheet dynamics, freshwater discharge, sediment transport, productivity, biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem changes across a wide range of timescales.
Shallow coring methods are suitable for obtaining detailed information on late Quaternary ice-ocean-climate variability, while ocean drilling records extends the perspective into older Cenozoic time windows when climate backgrounds were, substantially different from the present. Together, these archives provide complementary perspectives on rapid and long-term Arctic climate variability, helping to better understand global processes and constrain model predictions.
This session invites contributions based on the study of marine sediment cores and ocean drilling records and corresponding site surveys from the Arctic Ocean and surrounding continental margins. We particularly welcome studies integrating sedimentological, stratigraphic, micropaleontological, palaeogenomic, geochemical, paleomagnetic, physical-properties, and geophysical datasets to develop robust age models and paleoenvironmental reconstructions.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Arctic Ocean circulation and variability across the Arctic gateways;
- sea-ice evolution and ocean–ice–atmosphere interactions;
- ice-sheet growth, retreat, and instability;
- sediment provenance and depositional processes;
- palaeoceanographic and palaeoclimatic reconstructions across the Cenozoic;
- past marine ecosystem and biodiversity changes, including sedimentary ancient DNA
- abrupt climate events and glacial–interglacial transitions;
- seismic stratigraphy and geophysical constraints on sedimentary archives;
- development and correlation of age models using multidisciplinary and novel approaches;
We particularly encourage contributions that bridge different spatial and temporal scales and combine multiple archives and methodologies. The session aims to provide a forum for connecting high-resolution shallow-core studies with the longer-term perspective offered by ocean drilling, thereby improving our understanding of the evolution and sensitivity of the Arctic climate system.

This session explores the need, challenges, opportunities, drawbacks, and obstacles in applying and explaining the special world of compositional data spaces.

Compositional data is a special type of non-negative data that carries relevant information in the ratios among the variables rather than in the actual data values. Considering the metric of compositional data may conflict with familiar geoscientific approaches: single chemical elements or mineralogical concentrations as proxies for environmental changes, counts of individuals as indicators of ecological states, etc.
Felix Chayes (1960) and John Aitchison (1981) began to establish a parallel universe of statistical methods beyond normality and linearity to gain sustainable insights into Compositional Data Analysis (CoDA) in the geosciences. Since then, the geoscientific community has expanded the range of methods.
However, even in the era of rapidly expanding big data methods, sustainable CoDA remains underrepresented in recent research.

We welcome contributions from all disciplines to answer the following questions: (i) How does CoDA transform our view of the earth? (ii) How can we gain new sustainable insights by applying CoDA? (iii) How can CodA increase the scalability of numeric models? (iv) How to deal with zeros and missing data? (vi) How to deal with low-count compositions? (v) How should we convincingly communicate CoDA?
This session addresses researchers from all quantitative fields to exchange ideas and foster interdisciplinary collaboration.