Ichnology is a rapidly expanding field that is finding applications in many different fields, from the search for early life on Earth, to petroleum geology, sedimentology, evolutionary palaeobiology, archaeology and zoology among others. This interesting compilation of papers comes in a number of different formats from historical geology to review articles and original contributions. The editor has organized these into three sections ‘Historical Background’, ‘Concepts and connections to the earth and biological sciences’ and ‘Advances, fresh approaches and new directions’.
The ‘Historical background’ section hides a review of the ichnofacies model of Seilacher by MacEachern et al., which provides for the first time very welcome definitions of new terminology that has been used in ichnofacies papers for the last 10 years or so.
For the non-expert, there is an excellent section on the preservation of trace fossils and the terms used to describe them in the ‘Concepts and connections to the earth and biological sciences’ section. The review of ichnology and sequence stratigraphy, also by MacEachern et al., while effectively the same as that published by the same group of authors in 2004, is also worthwhile for someone new to ichnology. The same could be said for several of the papers which appear in very similar form in McIlroy (Reference McIlroy2004).
Highlights from the last sections ‘Concepts and connections to the earth and biological sciences’ and ‘Advances, fresh approaches and new directions’ include Miller & White's state-of-the-art review of lake ichnofacies, which involves integration of lake processes and trophic webs in a manner that is likely greatly to improve the understanding of the ichnology of such systems. Also in the same section is an excellent review of the biomechanics of burrowing by Jumars et al. that links sediment properties with burrowing mechanisms that, for me, helps to explain a lot of what I have found puzzling in trace fossils for many years.
In summary the volume is excellent in its scope, though its claim to be state-of-the-art is somewhat let down by the authors borrowing heavily on their earlier 2004 papers. I suspect that the book was a long time in press as many of the papers do not cite works after 2004. The reprographics in the volume are excellent, I would certainly recommend it as a library reference text to support other reading for students, and specialist ichnologists will find many little treasures of knowledge in the volume.
