This session aims to bring together a diverse group of scientists who are interested in how life and planetary processes have co-evolved over geological time, from the Precambrian to the Phanerozoic Eon. This includes studies of how changes in paleoenvironments have influenced the evolution of complex life - including animals, plants, and marine ecosystems - and how, in turn, biological innovations have reshaped Earth system processes. We seek to link fossil records to paleo-Earth processes, highlighting the interplay between biological evolution and tectonic, magmatic, and surface processes and explore how alternating greenhouse-icehouse climates have influenced biodiversity and ecosystem structure.
As an inherently multi-disciplinary subject, we aspire to better understand the complex coupling of biogeochemical cycles and life, the links between mass extinctions and their causal geological events, how fossil records shed light on ecosystem drivers over deep time, and how tectono-geomorphic processes impact biodiversity patterns at global or local scales. We aim to understand our planet and its biosphere through both observation- and modelling-based studies. We also invite contributions on general exoplanet-life co-evolution.
Alison Cribb