Geobiology: Objectives, Concepts, Perspectives

About this book

Reprinted from Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, Volume 219, Issues 1-2.

Geobiology is an exciting and rapidly developing research discipline that opens new perspectives in understanding Earth as a system. To determine and to exploit its possibilities, this promising scientific field will benefit from a discussion of its definition as a research discipline, its objectives, and its methodological approaches. Such a spirited discussion is the goal of the book "Geobiology: Objectives, Concepts, Perspectives". Geobiology touches various subdisciplines of geology and biology in many ways. The book will serve biogeochemists, paleontologists, biomineralogists, microbiologists and many others as a forum to determine future directions of geobiological research.

The book includes a section on the concept of geobiological studies, which combines the parent disciplines biology and geology. Several case studies describe geobiological investigations that serve to understand Earth in the present and past. The case studies give an overview of the general understanding of geobiology and lead the reader towards the current hot topics in this rising scientific discipline.

Contents

1. Editorial Board. 2. Special issue page. Introduction. 3. Geobiology - a holistic scientific discipline. 4. Geobiology and the fossil record: eukaryotes, microbes, and their interactions. 5. Geobiology and paleobiogeography: tracking the coevolution of the Earth and its biota. 6. The contributions of biogeomorphology to the emerging field of geobiology. 7. Temperature and salinity history of the Precambrian ocean: implications for the course of microbial evolution. 8. Production and cycling of natural microbial exopolymers (EPS) within a marine stromatolite. 9. Microbial mats as bioreactors: populations, processes, and products. 10. Geobiology of microbial carbonates: metazoan and seawater saturation state influences on secular trends during the Phanerozoic. 11. The role of microorganisms and biofilms in the breakdown and dissolution of quartz and glass. 12. Expanding frontiers in deep subsurface microbiology. 13. Microbial transformations of organic matter in black shales and implications for global biogeochemical cycles. 14. Geo-biological aspects of coastal oil pollution. 15. Biogeochemistry: now and into the future.

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