Invited speakers include: Tony Barnosky, Mike Benton, James Crampton, Shanan Peters
Organiser: Andrew Smith
Sponsors: Geological Society, Palaeontographical Society, Palaeontological Association
The history of diversity through time is seen through the filter of an incomplete and biased geological record. The geological record is systematically biased in both time and space and across a range of scales. A key factor is large-scale sea-level change, controlled by geotectonics, which is acknowledged as both a driver of biodiversity and a driver of the quality of the fossil record. The rock and fossil records in all environments are to some degree interlinked. The terrestrial rock record at a coarse scale mirrors in reverse the quality of the shallow marine rock record, while in the deep sea, the distribution of hiatuses have been linked to changes in sea-level recorded on the shelf. If we are to improve our understanding of the history of biodiversity we must first understand the nature of the rock record and its effects on preservation potential and biodiversity estimates. Although we have known of these problems for a long time, it is only recently, with the development of large databases tied into a GIS framework that the nature of the links between the rock and fossil record have begun to be rigorously investigated at high resolution and across a range of taxa and environments. A key unresolved question is whether the link between geological and fossil records reflects mutual response to a common driver or a cause and effect response. This symposium will examine the evidence for the links that exist between the geological and fossil records, and explore the consequences for our estimates of biodiversity patterns through time.