Ecological impacts of arable intensification in Europe

Ichnology is the study of traces created in the substrate by living organisms. This is the first book to systematically cover basic concepts and applications in both paleobiology and sedimentology, bridging the gap between the two main facets of the field. It emphasizes the importance of understanding ecologic controls on benthic fauna distribution and the role of burrowing organisms in changing their environments. A detailed analysis of the ichnology of a range of depositional environments is presented using examples from the Precambrian to the recent, and the use of trace fossils in facies analysis and sequence stratigraphy is discussed. The potential for biogenic structures to provide valuable information and solve problems in a wide range of fields is also highlighted. An invaluable resource for researchers and graduate students in paleontology, sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy, this book will also be of interest to industry professionals working in petroleum geoscience.

Ichnology: Organism-Substrate Interactions in Space and Time

Post-wildfire soil erosion in the Mediterranean: Review and future research directions

Climatically controlled river terrace staircases: A worldwide Quaternary phenomenon

The evidence and implications of polar ice during the Mesozoic

The sedimentary succession in the Atacama Desert records deposition under an arid to semiarid climate from the late Jurassic (150 Ma) to the present day. Palaeomagnetic data indicate no significant latitudinal movement of this area since the late Jurassic. The present-day location of the Atacama within the dry subtropical climate belt is the principal cause of aridity. This situation is likely to have prevailed since the late Jurassic, supplemented by (1) the continentality effect (enhanced by the Gondwanan landmass), and (2) the presence offshore of a cold, upwelling current (from at least the early Cenozoic onwards and possibly earlier), resulting in conditions promoting climatic stability and desert development. Rapid and extreme climatic fluctuations during the Plio-Pleistocene were not sufficient to destabilize the climate within the Atacama. Comparison with other long-lived deserts (e.g. SW USA, Namib, Sahara and Australia) suggests that the Atacama is the oldest extant desert on Earth.

150 million years of climatic stability: evidence from the Atacama Desert, northern Chile

This volume presents a series of papers on the geomorphology, sedimentology and dynamics of alluvial fans, selected from those presented at the ‘Alluvial Fans’ Conference held in Sorbas, SE Spain in June 2003. The conference was sponsored primarily by the British Geomorphological Research Group and the British Sedimentological Research Group, both organizations affiliated to the Geological Society of London. It is some time since an international conference has been held that was exclusively devoted to the geomorphology and sedimentology of alluvial fans. The previous such conference was that organized by Terry Blair and John McPherson in 1995, and held in Death Valley, a classic setting for alluvial fans (Denny 1965; Blair & McPherson 1994a). Although many of the papers presented there have since been published, no dedicated volume on alluvial fans as a whole resulted from that meeting, so even longer has elapsed since there has been a specific publication devoted wholly to a series of papers on the geomorphology and sedimentology of alluvial fans (Rachocki & Church 1990). South-east Spain was chosen as the venue for this conference, partly for logistic reasons and partly because it is a tectonically active dry region within which there is a wide range of Quaternary alluvial fans. These fans exhibit differing relationships between tectonic, climatic and base-level controls (Harvey 1990, 2002a, 2003; Mather & Stokes 2003; Mather et al. 2003), core themes in consideration of the dynamics of alluvial fans. An emphasis within the previous alluvial fan literature has been on fans within

Anne E. Mather

Papers

150 million years of climatic stability: evidence from the Atacama Desert, northern Chile

Alluvial fans: geomorphology, sedimentology, dynamics — introduction. A review of alluvial-fan research

The impact of Quaternary sea-level and climatic change on coastal alluvial fans in the Cabo de Gata ranges, southeast Spain

Dropstones: their origin and significance

Adjustment of a drainage network to capture induced base-level change: an example from the Sorbas Basin, SE Spain