Abstract
Technological advances make these exciting times for geoscientists studying Earth surface processes, their depositional products, and interactions with the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and lithosphere; from monitoring contemporary sediment transport processes to interpretation of sedimentary archives that record ancient environmental changes. We set out three research challenges: 1) Sedimentology and society; 2) Life and sediment interactions; 3) Sedimentary system responses to external forcings. Finally, we conclude our summaries of these cutting-edge research topics, with a rallying call for the sedimentology, stratigraphy, and diagenesis research communities to become integral to pertinent interdisciplinary research areas. The open access journal Frontiers in Earth Science: Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Diagenesis (SSD) is a new vehicle to enable our discipline to continue to grow, and reinvigorate these research areas as core geoscience disciplines. We are ready to receive manuscripts from across the Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Diagenesis research community, within and beyond the themes we summarize below. We intend that these themes will form the basis for special sessions at conferences, and to accrue open access thematic sets in the journal, which will reflect the central position of SSD research in the geosciences, and across interdisciplinary research programmes.
Highlights
The 7.6 billion people living on our planet face a number of pressing issues that include climate change, food and energy security, natural resource management, human health, clean water management, sustainable use of the oceans, building resilient infrastructure, and responsible production and consumption (UNSDGs, 2015)
Can we confidently attribute processes to the resultant sedimentary deposits? How can we establish a precise chronology for past events? How did past events respond to environmental controls? How complete are sedimentary sequences? What post-depositional processes may complicate their interpretation?
We are open to receiving manuscripts from across the full breadth of Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Diagenesis research community
Summary
The 7.6 billion people living on our planet face a number of pressing issues that include climate change, food and energy security, natural resource management, human health, clean water management, sustainable use of the oceans, building resilient infrastructure, and responsible production and consumption (UNSDGs, 2015) Many of these issues involve a better understanding of ancient, modern, and future process interactions at and below the Earth’s surface. Given the breadth of depositional environments, processes, and archives available, we cannot cover all the challenges where sedimentologists, stratigraphers, basin analysts, and sedimentary geochemists can contribute; the themes and examples identified cannot be comprehensive, and inevitably reflect the perspectives of the authors Technological advances make these exciting times for geoscientists studying Earth surface processes, their depositional products, and the interactions with the biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and lithosphere; from monitoring contemporary sediment transport processes to interpretation of sedimentary archives that record ancient environmental changes. We are open to receiving manuscripts from across the full breadth of Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, and Diagenesis research community
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