Sustainability, transport and design: reviewing the prospects for safely encouraging eco-driving

Private vehicle use contributes a disproportionately large amount to the degradation of the environment we inhabit. Technological advancement is of course critical to the mitigation of climate change, however alone it will not suffice; we must also see behavioural change. This paper will argue for the application of Ergonomics to the design of private vehicles, particularly low-carbon vehicles (e.g. hybrid and electric), to encourage this behavioural change. A brief review of literature is offered concerning the effect of the design of a technological object on behaviour, the inter-related nature of goals and feedback in guiding performance, the effect on fuel economy of different driving styles, and the various challenges brought by hybrid and electric vehicles, including range anxiety, workload and distraction, complexity, and novelty. This is followed by a discussion on the potential applicability of a particular design framework, namely Ecological Interface Design, to the design of in-vehicle interfaces that encourage energy-conserving driving behaviours whilst minimising distraction and workload, thus ensuring safety

Engineering the Cambrian explosion: the earliest bioturbators as ecosystem engineers

By applying modern biological criteria to trace fossil types and assessing burrow morphology, complexity, depth, potential burrow function and the likelihood of bioirrigation, we assign ecosystem engineering impact (EEI) values to the key ichnotaxa in the lowermost Cambrian (Fortunian). Surface traces such as Monomorphichnus have minimal impact on sediment properties and have very low EEI values; quasi-infaunal traces of organisms that were surficial modifiers or biodiffusors, such as Planolites, have moderate EEI values; and deeper infaunal, gallery biodiffusive or upward-conveying/downward-conveying traces, such as Teichichnus and Gyrolithes, have the highest EEI values. The key Cambrian ichnotaxon Treptichnus pedum has a moderate to high EEI value, depending on its functional interpretation. Most of the major functional groups of modern bioturbators are found to have evolved during the earliest Cambrian, including burrow types that are highly likely to have been bioirrigated. In fine-grained (or microbially bound) sedimentary environments, trace-makers of bioirrigated burrows would have had a particularly significant impact, generating advective fluid flow within the sediment for the first time, in marked contrast with the otherwise diffusive porewater systems of the Proterozoic. This innovation is likely to have created significant ecospace and engineered fundamentally new infaunal environments for macrobiotic and microbiotic organisms alike

Refining palaeoenvironmental analysis using integrated quantitative granulometry and palynology

Accurate palaeoenvironmental analysis is at the heart of producing reliable interpretations and depositional models. This study demonstrates a multivariate statistical approach to facies analysis based on relationships between grain size and quantitative palynology. Our methodology has the advantage that it can be used on small amounts of sample, such as core or well cuttings, as the basis for facies analysis. Proof of concept studies involving the collection of grain-size and palynological datasets from well-exposed outcrops of the Middle Jurassic, Lajas Formation of the Neuquén Basin, Argentina, demonstrate that canonical correspondence analysis can be used to consistently recognize facies and aid in the determination of depositional environments. This study demonstrates the link between depositional facies, grain-size distribution, palynomorph hydrodynamics and assemblage taphonomy of palynomorphs. This knowledge can be transferred into a semi-automated statistical facies prediction technique for the subsurface in complex depositional settings, particularly when calibrated against conventional sedimentary facies analysis.The attached article is the accepted manuscript for this article. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from the article

Contributions of Professor Martin Brasier to the study of early life, stratigraphy and biogeochemistry

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Confirming the metazoan character of a 565Ma trace-fossil assemblage from Mistaken Point, Newfoundland

Surface locomotory trace fossils from the Mistaken Point Formation of Newfoundland, dated at ∼ 565 Ma, suggest that organisms capable of controlled locomotion and possessing muscular tissue may have existed among Avalonian Ediacaran macrofossil assemblages. Here we describe the Mistaken Point trace-fossil assemblage in full, discuss its stratigraphic context within the Mistaken Point Formation, and explore the competing hypotheses for the formation of the traces. We find that the trace fossils, preserved within a turbidite succession in a deep-marine depositional environment, are not attributable to abiogenic structures, to Ediacaran tubular or filamentous body fossils, to rangeomorph stems, or to a host of late Ediacaran and early Phanerozoic ichnofossils. Specimens within the assemblage show some similarities to the ichnogenera Helminthoidichnites and Archaeonassa, but discrepancies in certain aspects of their structure mean that we do not formally attribute them to these ichnotaxa at this time. The Mistaken Point ichnofossils possess morphological characteristics indicative of formation by an organism with a round base. Comparison with traces formed by modern organisms of such character appears to rule out formation by protistan, echinoderm, or annelid styles of movement, but is consistent with organisms moving via muscular controlled locomotion in a similar way to some modern mollusks and actinian cnidarians. We suggest therefore that the Mistaken Point trace-fossil assemblage reveals the presence of muscular metazoans in late Ediacaran deep-marine ecosystems. Such organisms cannot yet be attributed to specific phyla, but their inferred locomotory mechanisms share closest similarities with those utilized by extant actinians

Post-fossilization processes and their implications for understanding Ediacaran macrofossil assemblages

Fossil assemblages from Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula preserve diverse examples of the enigmatic Ediacaran macrobiota, offering some of the earliest evidence for large and complex multicellular life. These fossils are exposed on extensive coastal bedding planes in extraordinary abundances, permitting palaeoecological studies based on census data from spatially extensive palaeocommunities. Such studies have been used to constrain the reproductive strategy and phylogenetic placement of Ediacaran organisms. Geological mapping and stratigraphic correlation in the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve reveal that some fossil-bearing surfaces can be tracked over distances of several kilometres. These laterally extensive surfaces reveal that the modern processes by which the sediment overlying a fossil surface is removed may impose important controls on the observed composition of fossil assemblages. Weathering and erosion – along with factors associated with tectonics, metamorphism and discovery – are here grouped as ‘post-fossilization processes’ and introduce biases that are often not explicitly accounted for in palaeoecological studies. Specifically, post-fossilization processes may differentially influence the preservational fidelity of individual specimens on a given surface and generate features that could be mistaken for original morphological characters. We therefore recommend that post-fossilization processes must be considered when undertaking palaeoecological studies in Ediacaran successions in Newfoundland and, potentially, elsewhere

The dynamic influence of microbial mats on sediments: fluid escape and pseudofossil formation in the Ediacaran Longmyndian Supergroup, UK

<p>Microbial mats are thought to have been widespread in marine settings before the advent of bioturbation, and the range of their influence on sediments is gradually becoming recognized. We propose that mat sealing can dynamically affect porewater conditions, and allow the build-up of overpressure that can drive dewatering and degassing to produce a suite of atypical fluid-escape features. Finely bedded silty and sandy laminae from the <em>c</em>. 560 Ma Burway Formation of the Longmyndian Supergroup, Shropshire, England, reveal evidence for sediment injection, including disrupted bedding, clastic injections, sill-like features and sediment volcanoes at sub-millimetre scale. These features are associated with crinkly laminae diagnostic of microbial matgrounds. Matground-associated sediment injection can explain the formation of several types of enigmatic discoidal impressions, common in rocks of this age, which have previously been attributed to the Ediacaran macrobiota. Serial grinding of Longmyndian forms previously described as <em>Medusinites</em> aff. <em>asteroides</em> and <em>Beltanelliformis</em> demonstrates that such discoidal features can be fully explained by fluid escape and associated load structures. Our observations emphasize the non-actualistic nature of shallow-marine Ediacaran sediments. Matground-associated sediment injection features provide a new insight into the interpretation of Proterozoic rocks and the biogenicity of their enigmatic discoidal markings. </p

The arrangement of possible muscle fibres in the Ediacaran taxon <i>Haootia quadriformis</i>

Haootia quadriformis from Newfoundland, Canada, is one of the most unusual impressions of a soft-bodied macro-organism yet described from the late Ediacaran Period. Interpreted as a metazoan of cnidarian grade, the body impression of H. quadriformis possesses features interpreted as fibrous structures that represent possible evidence for muscular tissue. Evidence both in support of and against a relationship between H. quadriformis and the Staurozoa, one of the cnidarian groups to which Haootia was compared in Liu et al., is outlined by Miranda et al.. Our intention in our original paper was to illustrate the staurozoan body plan for comparative purposes, rather than suggest homology or direct ancestry. Nevertheless, fresh insights from workers with expertise in the biology of extant cnidarians are welcomed