The ichnological record can provide invaluable insight into the evolution of behaviour. Much of the current work in so-called "artificial life" and artificial neural networks is applicable to ethological paleobiology. Some preliminary experiments in this direction are presented here. A computer generated community of detritus feeders was simulated with the individuals in each generation being subjected to selection based on the success of their feeding strategies. Mutation and sexual reproduction are also simulated, resulting in an evolutionary process that produces increasingly more advanced simulated neural control systems. The resulting "virtual trace fossils" can be compared with well-known, naturally occurring trace fossils and the fossil record of behavioural evolution. Though this study is not intended as an exact replication of natural processes, such simulations may aid theory formation, and can be a useful educational tool.

All Paleocene stages (i.e., Danian, Selandian and Thanetian) have formally ratified definitions, and so have the Ypresian and Lutetian Stages in the Eocene, and the Rupelian Stage in the Oligocene. The Bartonian, Priabonian and Chattian Stages are not yet formally defined. After the global catastrophe and biotic crisis at the CretaceousePaleogene boundary, stratigraphically important marine microfossils started new evolutionary trends, and on land the now flourishing mammals offer a potential for stratigraphic zonation. During the Paleogene the global climate, being warm until the late Eocene, shows a significant cooling trend culminating in a major cooling event in the beginning of the Oligocene, preparing the conditions for modern life and climate. Orbitally tuned cyclic sedimentation series, calibrated to the geomagnetic polarity and biostratigraphic scales, have considerably improved the resolution of the Paleogene time scale.

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The Longyearbyen CO 2 storage project drilling and coring campaign in central Spitsbergen provided new insights on the shale-dominated Middle Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous Agardhfjellet Formation, which is the onshore counterpart to the Fuglen Formation and the prolific source rocks of the Hekkingen Formation in the Barents Sea. Logs of magnetic susceptibility, organic carbon content, organic carbon isotopes and XRF geochemistry on the cores, together with wireline logs, biostratigraphy and sedimentology, have made it possible to refine the interpretation of the depositional environment and to identify transgressive-regressive (TR) sequences. Several key sequence-stratigraphic surfaces are identified and suggested to be correlative in Central Svalbard, and four of them, although not necessarily chronostratigraphic, also to surfaces in the Barents Sea. Due to the nearly flat-lying thrust faults in the upper décollement zone of the West Spitsbergen Fold and Thrust Belt, there is some concern about the lateral correlation of the sequences within Spitsbergen. However, some of the TR sequence surfaces appear to be of regional importance and are recognised both onshore Svalbard and offshore on the Barents Shelf. The observations suggest a shallow-marine shelf depositional environment within an epicontinental sea with variable dysoxic, anoxic and oxic sea-floor conditions. The majority of the facies vary from outer shelf to transition zone or prodelta and lower shoreface/distal delta front. In one outcrop, proximal facies, i.e., delta front or middle shoreface, are recognised. In our study area the nearly 250 m-thick, fine-grained Agardhfjellet Formation is proposed to represent distal shoreline clinoforms and a precursor to the overlying forward-and southward-stepping wedge of the Valanginian Rurikfjellet Formation and the Barremian to Early Aptian Helvetiafjellet Formation.

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