SIGNIFICANCE OF ICHNOFABRIC IN THE GRAND (PHANEROZOIC) SCHEME OF THINGS (Invited Presentation)

Ichnology is an important bridge that offers useful links between the related fields of paleontology, ecology, ethology, sedimentology and stratigraphy. Ichnofabric, which represents the sedimentary record of biologic activity that may or may not permit confident identification of recognizable ichnotaxa, is the result of the dynamic processes of bioturbation, bioerosion and diagenesis in a sedimentary environment. As such, ichnofabric directly reflects animal-sediment interrelationships within the context of utilization of habitat space and other resources by infaunal communities. Ichnofabric research has diverged along several different azimuths, including attempts to quantify the intensity of bioturbation in sedimentary sequences, to reconstruct tiered infaunal communities, and to recognize and correlate recurrent ichnofabrics within stratigraphic and paleogeographic contexts. Prospects for fruitful advances in our recognition and characterization of ichnofabrics continue to expand as enhanced visualization technologies, such as computed tomography (CT) and computer-aided image analysis, become more widely available. These types of ichnofabric studies have been mainly local in scope. However, the potential and realized contributions from ichnofabric investigations to broad topics of regional and global scope in the Earth sciences are becoming more and more apparent. These include such topics of major importance as global climate change, mass extinction episodes, evolution of sedimentary basins, and exploration for energy resources. For example, repetitive occurrences of characteristic ichnofabrics offer interesting clues to understanding the nature of episodic and/or periodic paleoclimatic cycles on regional and possibly even global scales.