PhD: Palaeobiology of late Ediacaran microbial substrates

Importance of the area of research:

The Ediacaran Period (635-541 Ma) witnessed some of the greatest evolutionary events in Earth history, including the appearance and diversification of complex macroscopic life. The interactions between early macroscopic organisms and the microbial communities that had dominated the previous three billion years of Earth history are thought to be numerous, and ultimately led to the development of Phanerozoic marine ecosystems. Determining how the first macroscopic organisms, including the enigmatic Ediacaran biota, interacted with microbial matgrounds is a relatively poorly studied area. We hypothesize that microbial communities were no freer of environmental factors than most others, and that they could influence the ecology and distribution of Ediacaran macroscopic organisms and even structure the earliest macroscopic communities. Ediacaran sections in the White Sea region of Russia offer a perfect field area in which to characterize and disentangle these relationships in a variety of sedimentary facies and palaeoenvironments.

Project summary:

This project is designed to establish a new direction in geobiology through the integrated study of the interplay between microbial communities and macroscopic organisms in late Ediacaran ecosystems. It will examine multiple bedding surfaces at classic fossil localities along the Summer and Winter Coasts of the White Sea, Russia. These sedimentary successions contain multiple facies and lithologies, many of which yield exquisitely preserved Ediacaran fossils. The project will characterize the fine-scale, bed-by-bed sedimentology and palaeontology of the sequence, and will attempt to test existing hypotheses regarding the role of microbial surface communities in the nourishment, stabilization, and preservation of Ediacaran fossils.

N.B. This project is only suitable for applicants with substantial experience of geological fieldwork.