Symposium on Experimental Palaeontology
Date: Friday 12th December 2025
Duration: 13:30–17:15
The symposium will be held on the afternoon of Friday 12th December. The broad topic of Experimental Palaeontology will include invited talks from a diverse range of researchers at different career stages to showcase the breadth of activities where experimental methods and hypothesis testing are being used to address questions in palaeontology.
- Claire Belcher, University of Exeter, UK: What more do we need to know about ancient fire? The why and how
- Thomas Clements, University of Leicester, UK: The paradox of exceptional preservation: laboratory experiments reveal that decay is the engine of soft tissue fossilisation
- Harriet Drage, University of Lausanne, Switzerland: Validating palaeoecological Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations using experiments
- Jelena Godrijan, Ruđer Bošković Institute, Croatia: Experimental insights into coccolithophore ecology and survival in past ocean stress events
- Barry Lomax, University of Nottingham, UK: Experimental mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits: sporomorph malformations and mass extinctions
- Erik Sperling, Stanford University, USA: Physiological insights as a bridge between palaeontological and geochemical records
Icebreaker
Date: Friday 12th December 2025
Duration: 17:30–19:30
The Icebreaker will follow the Symposium in the evening of Friday the 12th December and will be held across Portland and Richmond buildings. Delegates with poster presentations will be encouraged to put up their posters so that they can be viewed during this time.
Attendance at the Icebreaker is included in the registration fee and will include two drinks vouchers. Delegates wishing to attend the Icebreaker should select this option at the time of online registration, where they will also be able to specify their drinks preferences (beer / wine / soft drinks).