SSP
Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology

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Broadening our Understanding of Bird Ichnology through Neoichnology

Broadening our Understanding of Bird Ichnology through Neoichnology

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]

Drilling on world’s rooftop – the Nam Co-ICDP campaign on the Tibetan Plateau

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 ...[Read More]

Fossilized Tree Trunks: Preservation in Continental and Marine Ancient Outcrops of Baja California

Fossilized Tree Trunks: Preservation in Continental and Marine Ancient Outcrops of Baja California

While working on the exceptional, but remote outcrops of Baja California, I have encountered an extraordinary quantity of fossilized tree fragments in Cretaceous deposits. These fossils were preserved in both subaerial, fluvial, and marine environments. Does this mean that preservation of tree trunks is easy? How can wood be preserved for more than 70 million years? What kind of information can we ...[Read More]

A Story of Fertilizer and the Colour Purple

A Story of Fertilizer and the Colour Purple

Introduction It is sometimes difficult to admit that you are (officially) a nerd, but I have a confession to make. I have collected dinosaurs on stamps for the last thirty years. Over 10,000 of these stamps have been issued across the world, and the vast majority of these issues are in my collection. One question that I am often asked is when the first dinosaur stamp was issued, which turns out to ...[Read More]