SSP
Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology

Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology

When huge masses of salt move underground: lessons from outcrops that go beyond the table salt

November 3, 2020
When huge masses of salt move underground: lessons from outcrops that go beyond the table salt
Aerial view of the El Gordo Anticlinal (foreground) and La Popa Mountain (background). Credit: Ramon Lopez

There is a place in the NE of Mexico where anyone can learn heaps about the dynamics of the ground beneath our feet while enjoying the wonders of the desert. Geologists call the area ‘La Popa Basin’. La Popa means “The Bow”, a name that comes from the shape of one of the mountains in this area, which resembles the front part of a very large boat. This place is a perfect training field for ge ...[Read More]

Introducing the TIMES initiative

September 24, 2025
Introducing the TIMES initiative

TIMES is the acronym of a large-scale international science initiative “Time Integrated Matrix for Earth Sciences” (Link: https://www.codd-home.net/times/). The idea is to launch a global program with the aim of synchronizing age models for particularly important geological climate records from the past 100 million years. The motivation for this program is given in a white paper published in the j ...[Read More]

Tracing temperatures in tropical Lake Petén Itzá over the last 24,000 years

August 11, 2025
Tracing temperatures in tropical Lake Petén Itzá over the last 24,000 years

  Past and present global warming: its effect on the tropics According to meteorological data and climate models, global temperatures have increased by up to 1.1 °C since 1960 because of rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, including an increase in CO₂ concentrations by up to 200 ppm. In some regions, such as the tropics, home to over 40% of the world’s population, warming has re ...[Read More]

Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Estuarine Deposits

March 14, 2025
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 reconstruc ...[Read More]

Broadening our Understanding of Bird Ichnology through Neoichnology

February 6, 2025
Broadening our Understanding of Bird Ichnology through Neoichnology
New type of fossil bird feeding trace from the Miocene of 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. 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, bir ...[Read More]