President: Cinzia Bottini
(Emailssp@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Marc De Batist
(Email)
ECS Representative: Shradha Menon
(Emailecs-ssp@egu.eu)
The Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology Division (SSP) focuses its activities on all aspects of the sedimentary record. About 70% of the Earth surface is covered by sedimentary deposits, which are eroded and deposited right at the contact between the solid lithosphere and the atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere. Sedimentary rocks record the history of our planet since almost 4 billion of years and play a pivotal role for our understanding of the evolution of life. This deep-time archive of Earth history is studied with a wide range of analytical techniques providing ever stunning details on the evolution of our planet. Sedimentary basins host important natural resources like coal, gas, oil, ore deposits and groundwater and therefore a better understanding of the physical, chemical and biological processes controlling the formation and distribution of sediments and sedimentary rocks is of utmost importance for our society.
Latest posts from the SSP blog
Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Estuarine Deposits
In recent months, I had the opportunity to work on a project analysing subsurface data from a rock sequence previously interpreted as the product of an estuarine depositional environment. The client sought subsurface maps to characterize the spatial distribution of various geobodies associated with sedimentary deposits typically found in modern estuaries. In other words, the goal was to reconstruct the sedimentary architecture of the subsurface beyond seismic resolution, identifying geobodies that cannot be resolved through seismic surveys. This task was …
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Broadening our Understanding of Bird Ichnology through Neoichnology
Miocene bird footprints from Sandakan, eastern Borneo Introduction Bird footprints are some of the most recognizable traces in the fossil record. Yet birds exhibit a wide variety of behaviours which may be preserved as ancient traces (Belaústegui et al 2017). Records include feeding traces like probing, nesting structures and possibly coprolites, but the study of the traces left by modern birds extends their scope to courtship-related scrapes, swimming and diving traces, bird resting and perching traces and feather impressions, as …
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Drilling on world’s rooftop – the Nam Co-ICDP campaign on the Tibetan Plateau
International Scientific Continental Drilling Program (ICDP) campaigns may lead scientists from all over the world to most exciting places that are often of extraordinary beauty and remoteness. All these attributes certainly apply to Lake Nam Co situated at an altitude of 4700 m above sea level on the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayas. Today this area supplies one third of the humankind with fresh water via the great rivers of Asia that mostly have their springs here. Lake Nam Co …
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Recent awardees
- 2025
- Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal
The 2025 Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal is awarded to
Donald Ross Prothero in recognition of a strong research profile in terrestrial stratigraphy, and unwavering support and education of the next generation.
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- 2024
- Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal
The 2024 Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal is awarded to
Silvia Frisia for her highly significant impact as a sedimentologist researching carbonate-based palaeoclimate science, in particular through her work on carbonate fabrics in cave deposits, or speleothems.
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- 2024
- Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award
The 2024 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to
Miguel Ángel Maté González for his outstanding work in palaeontology and archaeology developing a new methodology for the analysis of 3D cut marks on bones.
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- 2024
- Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award
The 2024 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award is awarded to
Mélinda Martins Deciphering local from global signals in Portimão Bank sedimentary dynamics
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