The Meeting

2nd July – 4th July, 2024 University College London   

Roughly two thirds of the Earth's land surface is covered by sediment and sedimentary rocks, including nearly all agricultural and urban areas. Sedimentary rocks represent a valuable archive of geological and environmental change, which is key to reconstructing the geologic history of our planet. Sedimentary basins also form the source and reservoir of most hydrocarbon resources and many other economically valuable deposits.

The Working Group on Sediment Generation (WGSG) is an informal group of international scientists who aim to understand how sediment is generated, transported and stored on the Earth's surface. For its sixth bi-annual meeting, the WGSG will gather in London to bring together sedimentologists, geomorphologists, rock physicists, geochemists and other scientists to discuss sediment generation and sediment routing systems in modern environments and deep geologic time.

The conference will cover a wide range of topics including theoretical and applied research; laboratory and field-based studies; as well as technological and methodological advances. The program will include lectures from senior and junior scientists, poster sessions and public debates, as well as hands-on workshops in sedimentary research.

Scientific and organising committee: Pieter Vermeesch, Thomas Baird, Guido Pastore.

Topics

We encourage the submission of studies, case studies and advance in methodology related (but not limited to):

  • Provenance analysis (using framework petrography, heavy minerals, bulk chemistry, detrital geochronology, varietal data or other methods)

  • Exhumation and erosion (thermochronology, cosmogenic nuclides, stratigraphic, tectonic and thermal studies of sedimentary basins)

  • Weathering and erosion (processes and rates of sediment production; and the influence that bedrock composition and environmental factors have on this)

  • Transport and sorting (modification of the source signal by chemical alteration, mechanical breakdown, hydraulic sorting, sediment recycling and mixing)

  • Deposition and diagenesis (allogenic and authigenic controls on depositional processes, transport fractionation, depositional facies, compositional modelling, diagenetic processes from shallow to deep burial, and diagenetic modelling)

Past Meetings