Reconstructing Processes from Genes to the Geologic Record

Geobiology investigates the coevolution of life and the environment over the entirety of Earth history, from life’s early beginnings to modern biogeochemical processes. At this meeting, we discuss critical biological, chemical, and physical processes and feedbacks in the natural world, and reconstruct how these have changed over Earth history. To investigate these questions, we explore the modern tools of molecular biology, microbial ecology, geochemistry, paleontology, and geology. The proposed sessions cover experimental and environmental microbiology, depositional environments and their relation to biogeochemical processes, and the nature of geobiological information preserved in the geologic record. These sessions highlight open questions, novel experimental and conceptual approaches, and active areas of research within the field. The resulting meeting will bring together scientists across the globe to exchange ideas, tools, and expertise from different subdisciplines. The conference will highlight the breadth of modern tools and approaches and improve the recognition of limits and uncertainties, both analytical and interpretational, in various subfields. A major goal of the conference will be to facilitate bridge building across the disparate fields within geobiology, particularly from the geological and biological ends of the spectrum.