Cover Bedding Surfaces: True Substrates and Earth's Historical Archive

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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Full Description

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.

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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 

Index