European Geosciences Union
Division on Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology
President: Marc De Batist (ssp@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Stéphane Bodin
(stefbodin@gmail.com)
The Stratigraphy, Sedimentology and Palaeontology Division (SSP) focuses its activities on all aspects of the sedimentary record. About 70 % of the Earth surface is covered by sedimentary deposits, which are eroded and deposited right at the contact between the solid lithosphere and the atmosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere. Sedimentary rocks record the history of our planet since almost 4 billion of years and play a pivotal role for our understanding of the evolution of life. This deep-time archive of Earth history is studied with a wide range of analytical techniques providing ever stunning details on the evolution of our planet. Sedimentary basins host important natural resources like coal, gas, oil, ore deposits and groundwater and therefore a better understanding of the physical, chemical and biological processes controlling the formation and distribution of sediments and sedimentary rocks is of utmost importance for our society.
The 2020 Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal is awarded to Michael J. Benton in recognition of his outstanding contributions to vertebrate palaeontology, to palaeobiology and to macroevolution across times of extreme environmental change.
The 2020 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Anna Joy Drury for her fundamental contributions to research on Miocene stable isotope stratigraphy, palaeoceanography and climate evolution.
The 2019 Jean Baptiste Lamarck Medal is awarded to Isabel P. Montañez for major contributions to the field of stratigraphy, in particular through the application of sedimentary geochemistry to address palaeoclimate and sequence stratigraphic concepts in deep time.
The 2019 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Christian Zeeden for his outstanding research in the field of astrochronology and for his innovative statistical approaches in constructing astronomically tuned robust time scales.
The 2019 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Florian Pohl First measurement of a flow mechanism responsible for enhanced erosion in channel-lobe-transition zones
The 2019 Outstanding Student Poster and PICO (OSPP) Award is awarded to Theresa Nohl Implications for cyclicity-based stratigraphic dating from the selective compaction and cementation of a halysitid coral from the Silurian of Gotland (Sweden)
EGU2020: Sharing Geoscience Online, the Union’s first completely virtual meeting, is destined for the record books! In April, shortly after the in-person General Assembly was cancelled, EGU Programme Committee Chair Susanne Buiter described Sharing Geoscience Online as “an exciting opportunity to demonstrate if our members are interested in new models of interacting.”
The statistics show that EGU members resoundingly responded to what Buiter called a “moment of truth,” with more than 26,000 participants from 134 countries taking part in Sharing Geoscience Online’s 701 scientific sessions. The vast majority of the discourse occurred through the exchange of live text chats, which had a median of 92 (and a maximum of 796) participants per chat and featured more than 200,000 posted messages.
Sharing Geoscience Online also included ten livestreamed Great Debates and Union Symposia, half a dozen live and pre-recorded short courses, and several virtual press conferences. These were watched live by 7,000 people and have received an additional 19,000 views to date on the EGU YouTube channel, where they’ll remain available for your viewing pleasure.
Authors uploaded presentation materials to nearly two-thirds of the event’s 18,036 abstracts, and these plus the more than 6,000 comments made to them have been archived on EGUsphere, the Union’s new interactive digital repository.
Sharing Geoscience Online also featured a number of fun traditions, including inspiring artwork created by EGU’s two (virtual) artists in residence and kids’ “volcanic paint” masterpieces. The week also closed with the traditional Friday unveiling of the annual Imaggeo photo competition winners.
The virtual gathering did not include the annual EGU awards ceremony; the recipients of the 2020 honours will be recognised alongside next year's awardees during EGU 2021. All nominations for the 2021 medals and awards are due on 30 June 2020.
Sharing Geoscience Online would not have been possible without the large and dedicated group of volunteers who enabled the shift “from Vienna to virtual” in six short weeks. EGU extends its heartfelt thanks to all Sharing Geoscience Online participants and conveners and everyone who helped create this opportunity to connect the global geoscience community during unprecedented times. Your efforts are truly appreciated!