NEW CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN ICHNOLOGY

Ichnology – the study of modern and ancient traces – is currently undergoing one of the strongest surges of its history. Since 1950 the number of papers on this topic has more than doubled in every decade; the current publication rate is at least 920 papers per year. While the acceleration of interest in ichnology has slowed in its historical strongholds of Europe and North America, it has burgeoned in recent decades in other parts of the world. Areas of current interest are diverse and include: stowing traces (sequestrichnia); microborings; predation traces; coprolites; reconstruction of ancient food webs; root traces; the effects of bioturbation on permeability and porosity; the advance of bioturbation from Ediacaran through Phanerozoic time; reconstruction of ancient food webs; the study of trace fossils at stratigraphic boundaries; new modern analogs to ancient trace fossils; the evolution of tracemakers and their traces; changes in morphology associated with growth of the tracemaker; standardization of terminology and of ichnotaxonomy; reevaluation of the ichnofacies concept; the ichnology of relatively inaccessible environments such as contourites; and even potential traces on the planet Mars (xenichnology). This hardly completes the list. In addition, many topics represent largely unrealized opportunities for research.