School of Geosciences Seminar Series - Marjorie Chan (U. of Utah)

The Future of Sedimentology on Earth and Mars

There are three ways in which the field of sedimentology is expanding in new and exciting directions.

1. Mars is an exciting frontier for sedimentology, with opportunities to discover what might exist within its sedimentary layers and surface landforms. Through new technologies and instrumentation advances, we have the ability to scientifically explore the Red Planet at unprecedented scales. Comparative terrestrial examples of concretions, soft-sediment deformation, and weathering show remarkable similarities to recent satellite and rover imagery from Mars. Studies of sedimentary context on Earth are critical because terrestrial analogs help us interpret depositional and diagenetic processes, as well as determine where habitable environments for life might exist
2. The integration of sedimentology with geobiology and astrobiology suggests that life is pervasive in every sedimentary setting on Earth. What would Earth look like without life? We likely don’t know because Earth is our only sample: N=1. Yet in the search for extraterrestrial life, it is critical to understand context across multiple scales, and how to distinguish abiotic from biotic signatures.
3. This talk closes with a perspective on how Earth science research will change in the future. New frontiers of sedimentary geology must leverage and employ the power of cyberinfrastructure. Data sharing and data management can open new science discoveries and relationships.
Looking forward, the future of sedimentology offer challenging frontiers for the next generations of scientists.