Palaeosols as evidence of terrestrial climate change at major Palaeozoic vertebrate evolutionary events (online lecture)

Dr Tim Kearsey, British Geological Survey, Edinburgh

Climate change is a major driver of evolution. Palaeosols (fossil soils) are one of the few direct indicators of terrestrial climate and provide a record of climate changes and landscape architecture, and are critical in understanding the terrestrialization of vertebrates in the Carboniferous and the Earth’s largest mass extinction at the end of the Permian.

Further Reading

Otoo, B., Clack, J., Smithson, T., Bennett, C., Kearsey, T. & Coates, M. 2019. A fish and tetrapod fauna from Romer’s Gap preserved in Scottish Tournaisian floodplain deposits. Palaeontology, 62, 225-253.

Tim is a survey geologist and sedimentologist with BGS in Edinburgh. He has research interests in Palaeozoic stratigraphy and sedimentology; palaeosols and palaeo-environmental reconstruction; and geostatistics.

This lecture will be held as a Zoom meeting. Society members for whom we have email addresses will be sent an invitation a few days before the event. If you are a member but are not on our email list, or a non-member who would like to join the meeting, please email the society’s meetings secretary to request an invitation.