True Substrates: Preservation of Human Timescale Snapshots on Ancient Bedding Planes

Explore the fascinating world of true substrates in this 1-hour 9-minute lecture from Seds Online. Delve into the concept of preserved surfaces found on rock outcrops of the sedimentary-stratigraphic record, which existed at the sediment-water or sediment-air interface during deposition. Discover the high value of these ancient bedding planes as repositories of palaeoenvironmental information, offering fossilized snapshots of microscale topography from deep time. Learn about the preservation processes of true substrates, their role in informing us about ancient environments and stratigraphic time at outcrop, and understand why they are surprisingly abundant in the sedimentary record. Gain insights into the counterintuitive nature of their prevalence and the implications for our understanding of Earth's geological history.