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Can Forward Stratigraphic Modeling enhance geological understanding of the subsurface and predict sedimentation through time and space?

Dr Barbara Claussmann1,2, Mr Peter Burgess3, Mr Mosfta Lejri4

1SLB, Oxford, United Kingdom, 2U2R 7511, Basins-Reservoirs-Resources (B2R), Beauvais, France, 3University of Liverpool, United Kingdom, 4SLB, Oslo, Norway

In the past 30 years, forward stratigraphic modelling (FSM), the numerical simulation of stratigraphic processes constrained by the laws of physics, has become an increasingly popular tool for better understanding and predicting the Earth subsurface.

Contrary to traditional approaches and methods (e.g., geostatistical modelling), FSM does not only rely on geometrically constrained interpolation and / or analogue pattern reproduction. Instead, it is based on numerical formulations of mathematical equations that reproduce the physical and geological processes existing in nature. As such, FSM encodes key process-derived trends and uses them to create physically and geologically constrained digital models of the subsurface that can represent a useful approximation to reality.

While no model can perfectly represent reality, FSM models do provide valuable insights and practical benefits to the Geoscience communities, academies and industries (e.g., Geohazards, New Energy, Oil & Gas…) by (1) challenging geological concepts, (2) informing on the expected sedimentary and stratigraphic architectures and associated lithology distributions, (3) generating insights into the composition, properties and processes of the sedimentary sequences and / or as (4) offering new clues to unravel the geological history of sedimentary basins through time and space.

This session welcomes any oral or poster contributions highlighting how use of FSM contributed to a useful prediction or significant advance in geological understanding of modern or ancient sedimentary systems in your study area or basin of interest.

Deciphering climate and environmental records in shallow marine environments across space and time

Dr Romain Vaucher1, Dr Andrew La Croix2, Dr Shahin Dashtgard3, Dr Li Lo4, Dr Ludvig Löwemark4, Dr Christian Zeeden5

1College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia, 2Sedimentary Environments and Analogues Research Group, School of Science, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand, 3Department of Earth Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada, 4Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei City, Taiwan (R.O.C.), 5Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics (LIAG), Geozentrum Hannover, Germany

The shallow-marine realm (i.e., shoreline to shelf) is directly affected by climatic fluctuations and sea level changes on glacial-interglacial time scales at any latitude. Amongst all environments on Earth, the shallow marine realm can be profoundly affected by changes in climate. Understanding how climate and environment have changed in the past can be deciphered by analysing the sedimentary record.

In this session, we invite contributions focused on reconstructing Earth’s past climate and environmental conditions using shallow-marine strata. Presentations may include, but are not limited to, outcrop, borehole, laboratory, and modeling studies dealing with clastic, carbonate, and/or mixed clastic-carbonate systems. We particularly encourage early-career scientists to deliver oral presentations. This session is organized under the umbrella of the PRISMS (Paleoclimate Records in Shallow Marine Strata) Group (https://www.prisms-climate.com/).

Fjord sediments: Archives of climate and tectonics through time

Greer Gilmer1, Ellen Unland2, Chris Moy2, Sebastian Bertrand3, Craig Smeaton4, Matthias Forwick5

1GNS Science, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 3Ghent University, Belgium, 4University of St Andrews, Scotland, 5The Arctic University of Norway, Norway

The unique morphology of fjord basins enables them to act as natural sediment traps, preserving detailed records of environmental, climatic, and tectonic changes. High sediment accumulation rates make fjords ideal for developing high-resolution archives of past climate and environmental change, offering insights into large-scale climate mechanisms and their potential future trajectories.  Advancing these globally important records requires a multidisciplinary approach that integrates geophysical investigations of fjord environments, physical and geochemical analysis of sediments, and characterisation of fjord processes.

This session seeks to bring together researchers from across disciplines working on modern and ancient glaciated and non-glaciated fjords in both hemispheres. We welcome submissions from a wide range of fjord topics including, but not limited to, geophysics, organic carbon burial, oceanographic circulation, and paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental reconstructions, including geohazards and glacier variability.

By synthesizing diverse approaches, this session aims to advance our understanding of fjord systems as critical archives of Earth’s past and predictions of its future.

Open Science in Sedimentology: missteps, success stories, standards, and solutions

Dr Valentin Zuchuat1, Dr Jarred Lloyd2, Dr Suzanne Bull3, Dr Björn Nyberg4, Dr Sara Polanco5, Prof. Anne Bernhardt6

1CSIRO, Kensington, Australia, 2University of Adelaide, Australia, 3GNS Science, Te Pū Ao, Avalon, New Zealand, 4University of Bergen, Norway, 5University of Sydney, Australia, 6Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Most scientists are either familiar with, or have heard of “Open Science”, which has the potential of increasing the transparency, inclusivity, and democratisation of scientific processes. The guiding principles of the UNESCO Open Science recommendation aim to increase equality of opportunity, transparency and reproducibility, collaboration and inclusion, flexibility, and sustainability. There are four key pillars in the UNESCO recommendation that enable Open Science: open scientific knowledge, open science infrastructures, open dialogue with other knowledge systems, and open engagement of societal actors. Overall, Open Science aims at making Science more ethical, transparent, and freely available to everyone including fellow scientists, policy makers, and private citizens. The last decades have seen major development in Open Source Software, Preregistration, Registered Reports, Open Access and Preprints, Open Evaluation, Team Science, as well as Open Data, Protocols, Materials, and Code, as listed by the Center for Open Science. This movement has also positively impacted the world of sedimentology.

This session aligns itself with the discussion on Open Access scheduled at this congress, in a global context of funding agencies requesting publicly funded research to be freely accessible. We welcome all types of contributions that promote, develop, and use Open Science principles applied to sedimentology both as a research, teaching, or communication tool. We also encourage submissions on sustainable and participatory community-driven initiatives supporting Education, Diversity, Inclusion, transparency, ethics, and openness in sedimentary research. This session aims at fostering the broad dissemination of scientific knowledge related to the Earth System, including negative results, success stories, best practices, and solutions that help make Science more accessible and transparent. Early Career Scientists are warmly welcome to showcase their work. We encourage them to apply for oral or poster presentations. We encourage all presenters to make their material available to the general public via channels available to them.

Sedimentary evidence of geohazards – past and present

Dr Catherine Chagué1, Prof Massimo Moretti2

1UNSW Sydney, Australia, 2University of Bari Aldo Moro, Italy

We invite researchers to present new findings about the sedimentary fingerprints, both on land and offshore, of past and present geohazards, including amongst others, storms, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, and landslides. Multidisciplinary approaches and introductions of new techniques for the study of extreme events are welcome.

Sedimentation in polar ice sheet margins

Dr Georgia Grant1,5, Assoc. Prof.  Christina Riesselman2, Dr. Imogen Browne3,4, Matthias Forwick6

1GNS Science, Wellington, New Zealand, 2University of Otago, Otago, New Zealand, 3Binghamton University, SUNY, USA, 4University of Notre Dame, USA, 5Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand, 6The Arctic University of Norway

This session will explore sedimentary processes in Antarctic and Arctic margins and marine settings, emphasising their unique role in recording the interplay between ice sheets, tectonics, and climate change. We aim to bring together researchers working on modern to ancient sedimentary systems influenced by glacial, glacio-marine, and deep-water depositional processes. Topics may include:

  • The sedimentary record of ice sheet dynamics and their interaction with tectonic activity on active margins.
  • The role of glacio-fluvial, glacio-marine, and turbiditic processes in shaping sedimentary systems.
  • Mass transport deposits (MTDs), submarine landslides, and turbidites in high-latitude environments.
  • Sedimentary archives of climate change and tectonic evolution in the Southern and Arctic oceans.
  • Insights into sedimentary diagenesis and resource potential in glacially influenced settings.

This session will also highlight the influence of seismicity and eustatic changes on sedimentary deposits, as well as the role of paleoecology in reconstructing past environments in polar regions. Contributions integrating fieldwork, remote sensing, modelling, and laboratory approaches are encouraged.

Shaking across the land-to-sea boundary: Utilizing sedimentological imprints of past earthquakes to constrain seismic behaviour at active plate boundaries

Dr Charlotte Pizer1, Dr Katleen Wils2, Dr Drake Singleton3, Dr Renaldo Gastineau4

1University of Innsbruck, Austria, 2Ghent University, Belgium, 3USGS, Santa Cruz, USA, 4EDYTEM, Université Savoie Mont-Blanc, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France

At active plate boundaries such as subduction zones, the recurrence interval of the largest and most devastating earthquakes is often much longer than instrumental and historical records. Investigating the sedimentological imprint of past earthquakes is therefore necessary to obtain longer records spanning multiple seismic cycles that allow the better prediction of future hazard. Marine, coastal and lacustrine environments have been proven to serve as sensitive, natural archives of earthquake-induced event deposits through preservation of turbidites, landslides, and tsunami deposits. In the last decade, there have been tremendous advancements in the way sedimentary signatures of event deposits are identified (e.g. µXRF, µCT, hyperspectral scanning, high-resolution geophysical surveys), dated (radionuclides, radiocarbon, Bayesian age-depth modelling), and correlated spatially and temporally to infer earthquake size, location and recurrence. We welcome submissions related to the development and application of state-of-the-art methodologies in onshore and offshore paleoseismology that can be used to advance the understanding of earthquake cycles and therefore hazard at active plate boundaries. In particular, we encourage submissions from work that aims to i) integrate land-to-sea records, ii) test along-strike synchronicity, iii) distinguish upper-plate and megathrust earthquakes, iv) apply paleoseismic results to constrain ground motion models, and v) align paleorecords with modern geophysical observations and vice versa.

Student Research Forum: driving progress in sedimentological studies.

Dr Joanna Pszonka1, Dr Chelsea Pederson2, Dr Stephen Lokier3

1Colorado School of Mines, Golden, United States, 2University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, United States, 3University of Derby, United Kingdom

The Student Research Forum aims to promote networking and foster mentorship opportunities within the sedimentology community. Students will showcase their ongoing research as works-in-progress, engaging in discussions with faculty, mentors, and peers to gain valuable insights and constructive feedback. This forum provides a collaborative and supportive environment where students can refine their projects, exchange innovative ideas, and explore potential collaborations to advance their academic and professional journey.

The continental sedimentary successions and their ability in understanding the present and forecasting the future of the Earth’s surface

Professor Giorgio Basilici1, Dr. Karol Jewula2, Professor Marco Benvenuti3, Professor Anna Breda4, Master Jacopo Nesi3

1Universidade Estadual de Campinas - UNICAMP, CAMPINAS, Brazil, 2Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland, 3Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Firenze, Italy, 4Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Università di Padova, Italy

This session aims to bring together scientific communications that utilise continental deposits for reconstructing the Earth’s surface palaeoenvironment in a broad sense (lato sensu), which can contribute to realistic analyses of its present and future conditions. Contributions focusing on palaeosols, the interaction between channels and floodplain deposits, processes of terrestrial sediment dispersion in slope, fluvial and aeolian systems and other aspects of continental deposits aligned with these objectives are highly encouraged and welcome.

Varved and high-resolution lacustrine sequences as records of climate change, anthropogenic impact and extreme events

Professor Pierre Francus1, Dr Celia Martin-Puertas2

1Centre Eau Terre Environnement, Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Quebec City, Canada, 2Department of Geography, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom

Lakes are natural sediment traps within the human habitat and continuously record climate change, environmental evolution and human impact. Varved and high-resolution lake sediment records provide suitable records of short-term extreme events (e.g., floods, storms, earthquakes), seasonal to multi-annual extremes (e.g., dry periods, cold winters, heat waves) and abrupt climate changes.

This session appeals to a multidisciplinary audience of sedimentologists, paleolimnologists, and limnogeologists studying varves and high temporal resolution records at all time scales and from all environments. We welcome reconstructions related to climatic conditions, runoff, flooding, catchment erosion, sediment transfer, solar forcing, as well as other suitable topics like environmental monitoring. Moreover, this session invites reports about latest developments in the interpretation of varved records, as well as improvements of geochronological methods and documentation of new analytical techniques. This session is a contribution to the PAGES "Varve Working Group".