When engineers look to nature for inspiration, they often turn to living systems. The flight of birds has influenced aircraft design, gecko feet inspired new adhesives and lotus leaves led to the development of self-cleaning surfaces.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania now argue that engineers should look somewhere else in nature as well: the ground beneath their feet.

In a perspective paper published in Physical Review E, the team introduces geomimicry, a framework that asks how soils, sediments and other Earth-mediated materials have been shaped over geologic time and how those processes can inspire the next generation of sustainable materials.