MindTheGap: Quantifying the completeness of the stratigraphic record and its role in reconstructing the tempo and mode of evolution

Welcome to the webpage of the project.

We develop numerical models to study the structure of the geological record and make better recontructions of past evolutionary dynamics. Our goal is to understand how time, environmental and evolutionary events are represented in imperfect, gappy records and to use this knowledge to reconstruct the history of life and palaeoclimate.

This project is a consortium between Utrecht University and the Netherlands eScience Center. Some software used and developed in this project is a continuation of AstroTOM. See also project record at CORDIS.

Project news

• We are hosting the CycloNet meeting: a conference and workshop for cyclostratigraphers, including a field trip to Devonian and Carboniferous localities in Belgium. The meeting will take place at Utrecht University on 26th - 29th June. Programme and registration

• We presented a show on modelling evolution and an interactive booth at Science is Wonderful! 2025 in Brussels in March. Read the report here

• Xianyi Liu presented his talk How does subaerial erosion of carbonate platform distort the sedimentary record? at the SedsOnline webinar. See the recording

• StratPal: An R package for creating stratigraphic paleobiology modelling pipelines is now published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Funded by the European Union (ERC, MindTheGap, StG project no 101041077). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.