Abstract

In studies of modern landscapes, biogeomorphology describes the two-way interaction between biotic and dynamic abiotic landscape elements. As organisms interact with landforms and Earth surface processes, they can modify attributes such as sediment stability, fluid dynamics and roughness, all of which can moderate erosion, deposition and stasis, and thus register signals in the landforms and sedimentary deposits of an environment. The recognition of such signatures in the deep time geological record has potential significance for understanding the role of life in planetary surface process because ancient strata enable access to timescales in excess of the finite historicity of instrumental records afforded in the study of modern biogeomorphology. Further, the ancient record encapsulates a wide range of spatio-temporal scales, which enable ancient life-sediment interactions to be interrogated on a micro- to global scale and over durations from the instantaneous to evolutionary timescales. Accessing all of these means a better understanding of how effect cascades can cause the small scale to impact the large scale and thus set boundary conditions for further effects. Using a series of case studies we demonstrate how an understanding of deep time biogeomorphology can be accessed from the sedimentary geological record at outcrop. In doing so we seek to demonstrate the fundamental role that life and evolution have has in constructing the siliciclastic record and underline that many sedimentary phenomena are essentially physical processes that are mediated through biological processes. Given that populations which evolve on timescales congruent to that of landscape change can have their evolution affected by the change, we emphasise how further investigation in the vein has the potential to shift perceptions of the history of Earth as a living planet through means of coeval interrogation of sedimentary and fossil records.

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