Bedding Surfaces: True Substrates and Earth's Historical Archive
Product code: SP556
Print publication date: 30/09/2025
Geological Society of London, GSL Special Publications, Earth Materials Deposits and Petrology, Sedimentology, Palaeoenvironments, New
Type: Book (Hardback)
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 9781786206923
Author/Edited by: Edited by N.S. Davies and A.P. Shillito
Weight: 1.1kg
Number of pages: 422
Online publication date: 22/09/2025
Lyell Collection URL: https://www.lyellcollection.org/toc/sp/556/1
£130.00
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Special Publication 556
Bedding surfaces are innate components of the fabric of sedimentary successions. However, despite their pervasiveness and familiarity, the importance and diversity of these stratal phenomena can frequently be overlooked and ill-defined. This volume seeks to shed new light on bedding surfaces from carbonate and clastic strata throughout the Precambrian and Phanerozoic, and across a broad swathe of sedimentary environments.
Topics covered include:
(1) the importance of true substrates – those bedding surfaces that are verified archives of the ancient interfaces between the lithosphere and hydro/atmosphere;
(2) the differentiation and classification of depositional and diagenetic bedding;
(3) the time significance and historical value of different types of true substrates and other bedding surfaces;
(4) the practical use of bedding surfaces in palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental investigations; and
(5) detailed case studies demonstrating their importance to palaeontological, ichnological and sedimentological interpretations, with examples from throughout Earth history.
Davies, N. S. and Shillito, A. P. Bedding surfaces: true substrates and Earth’s historical archive – an introduction
Davies, N. S., Veenma, Y. P., Craig, J. A., Allport, H. A., McMahon, W. J. and Shillito, A. P. Time, space and synoptic topography: how to read outcrops as a granular record of Earth history
Wright, V. P., Marriott, S. B. and Hillier, R. D. Palaeosols and surfaces: what fossil soils tell us about the representation of time in some sedimentary successions
Veenma, Y. P. and Davies, N. S. Short-stasis signatures in Cambrian and Ordovician shallow-marine sandstones: implications for the ichnological record and time preserved at outcrop
Uchman, A. and Wetzel, A. Are there ‘true substrates’ in turbidite depositional settings?
Wang, Y., Wignall, P. B., Peakall, J., Baas, J. H. and Poulton, S. W. Softgrounds: substrates controlled by sediment gravity flows and the evolution of deep-water trace fossils
Nohl, T., Munnecke, A. and Wright, V. P. Bedding and bedding surfaces in carbonate and mixed carbonate–siliciclastic successions part 1: a critical evaluation of biases in identification and interpretation across disciplines and schools
Wright, V. P., Nohl, T. and Munnecke, A. Bedding and bedding surfaces in carbonate and mixed carbonate–siliciclastic successions part 2: processes, identification and implications of diagenetic bedding
O’Connell, B. and Wallace, M. W. The palaeoenvironmental and biological significance of marine carbonate depositional surfaces
Noffke, N. and Buntin, R. C.C. Microbial mats writing the fossil record of true substrates in clastic rock successions
Wignall, P. B., Peakall, J., Best, J. and Baas, J. H. Distinguishing microbially induced sedimentary structures from flow-induced interfacial deformation structures (MISS v. FIDS)
McMahon, W. J., Liu, A. G., Veenma, Y. P., Vixseboxse, P. B. and Boddy, C. E. Remarkable fossils on unremarkable bedding planes? The role of true substrates in the fossil record of the Ediacaran macrobiota
Benner, J. S. and Knecht, R. J. Full-body impressions: a category of trace fossils unique to exceptionally preserved bedding planes and indicators of true substrates
Melnyk, S., Coutret, B., Brown, D., Zonneveld, J.-P., Kavanaugh, J. L. and Gingras, M. K. Assessing vertical bioturbation intensity from bedding planes
Gougeon, R., Vidal, M. and Michaud, E. Bifungites from the Ordovician of Crozon Peninsula (Kermeur Formation, Brittany, France): environmental tolerance and evolutionary trajectory of an extinct animal behaviour
Olivo, M. S., Isla, M. F., Muñoz, D. F., Halpern, K., Moyano-Paz, D., Arregui, M. G., de la Puente, G. S., Mángano, M. G. and Buatois, L. A. Stasis coupled to transgressive surfaces in a Silurian sand-rich tide-dominated deltaic succession (Balcarce Formation, Argentina)
Craig, J. A., Davies, N. S. and McMahon, W. J. True substrates from a Mississippian wetland: windows into the biogeomorphology of Visean tetrapod habitats (Tyne Limestone Formation, UK)
Buatois, L. A., Mángano, M. G. and Maples, C. G. Exploring the significance of true substrates in a Pennsylvanian fluvio–estuarine tidal flat
Shillito, A. P., Paz, M., Gougeon, R., Buatois, L. A., Mángano, M. G., Piñuela, L. and García-Ramos, J. C. Sedimentary stasis in a Jurassic lagoonal delta system: the Lastres Formation of Asturias, northern Spain
Pittinger, D., Rogers, G., Reichard-Flynn, W. R., Simpson, E. L., Wizevich, M. C., Keebler, A. M. and Evans, S. Recognizing primary palaeotopography utilizing ichnofossils and 3D models: Mill Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite, Utah
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