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.............................................................................................................................. SDS Minutes 2008 .............................................................................................................................. Minutes of the SDS Business Meeting Oslo
, 2.
Approval of the Minutes of the Business Meeting, 5.
Devonian Chronostratigraphic Definitions 7.
SDS Newsletter and Publications As
requested by ICS, as announced by email (distribution of the Agenda) and
in SDS Newsletter 23, the formal annual SDS Meeting for 2008 took place
in conjunction with the 33rd IGC in Oslo, and in conjunction
with various ICS symposia. Because of a shift of the congress talk by
the Chairman to 17.30 on the same day, and because of overlap in time
and of the meeting room with the Silurian Subcommission, the beginning
of the Business Meeting was shifted to 18.30. Attendance:
A very low attendance was anticipated by experience with past IGCs and
by the feedback with many members. Therefore, the huge amount of given
apologies will not be reported. Due to the rather late and somewhat
unexpected shift of all ICS business meetings from the 10th
to the 8th August, the Secretary,
who was on a field trip at the time, could not attend and, consequently,
the Minutes are prepared by the Chairman.
Present TMs: The Chairman,
A. Blieck, C.E. Brett, J. Hladil;
CMs: M. Narkiewics, S. Turner,
Wang, C.-Y.; Guests: P. Heckel
(outgoing Chairman of Carboniferous Subcommission), B. Rickards
(new Chairman of Carboniferous Subcommission), Ji Qiang (Beijing). No Documents were presented.
The
Chairman welcomed the
participants and gave the apology of the Secretary,
who recognized the change of date too late, and of the Vice-Chairman, who was not part of the Moroccan delegation to
the IGC. He regretted that the planned SDS symposium on neritic-pelagic
correlations also had too few contributions. Consequently, it was
cancelled and talks were mostly transferred to the HPF-01 symposium on
“General contributions to palaeontology and historical geology”. The
IGC organizers, unfortunately, were unable to combine, as proposed by
the Chairman and by Peter Königshof,
the SDS and IGCP 499 symposia, which then both were cancelled. Session
HPF-01 and Session HPF-13 on “Major events in the evolution of marine
biota” included several important Devonian talks on Devonian sea-level
changes in Algeria (by Videt
et al.), on the classical Pragian (by Hladil
et al.), on Xinjiang (by Suttner
et al.), on the trilobite faunas and extinction around the
Frasnian-Famennian boundary of the Canning Basin (by K. McNamara),
on the Taghanic Event in the Baltic Basin (by the Secretary),
on Frasnian ammonoids in neritic facies (by the Chairman),
and on the Baltic Silurian-Devonian boundary (poster by Lazauskiene et al.). 2.
Approval of the Minutes of the Business Meeting, The
few members present approved the Minutes of the Nevada
Meeting 2007, published in SDS Newsletter 23, pp. 11-19. Lyudmila
Nekhorosheva reported in
April 2008 on the death of our long-time CM Svetlana V. Cherkesova,
who died already on the 28th September 2007. The Devonian
community has not only lost a kind and pleasant person but also an
important member with immense knowledge of the Devonian of the Russian
Arctic. The Chairman asked
for a minute of memorial silence. A
very pleasant news is the award of the ICS Digby McLaren
Medal for the outstanding lifetime contributions to stratigraphy to our
TM C.E. Brett. The Chairman
warmly congratulated Carl and emphasized that the well-deserved award
also shines some of its light on the progress in Devonian stratigraphy
in general. The
annual report to ICS has been included in SDS Newsletter 23 (pp. 5-11)
und summarizes the past (2007) goals, achievements and topics, which
need to be followed further on. As requested for every four year period
starting with an IGC, it includes objectives and a work plan for the
period until the next IGC in Brisbane in 2012. All members are asked to
read this carefully and to become actively involved with the realisation
of the ambitious programme. In 2012 SDS will have to produce a hopefully
positive balance of goals and achievements. Our SDS meetings shall be
combined with symposia that deal with the major tasks, such as the
improvement and revision of the global eustatic curve, advances in
cross-facies (terrestrial-neritic-pelagic) correlation, event
stratigraphy and in geochronology, for example based on cyclic
stratigraphy (“orbital tuning”) and new radiometric ages. Perhaps in
2011 we should give some time for a review of the correlation between
formal global and regional chronostratigraphic units. The
Chairman drew attention to
the highly interesting contributions on general aspects of stratigraphy
and geochronology that have been made in the various ICS symposia in the
past days of the IGC. He specifically mentioned discussions where
stratigraphers were reminded about the rather variable and potentially
long (several 100 Ka) residual time of crystallized zircons in melt
before eventual volcanic eruption and volcaniclastic deposition. In
other words, any zircon dating gives the crystallisation, not the
depositional age, and the difference can be up to the length of a
biozone - and there is no method to know or estimate the difference. The
Devonian was used as a case study in a talk by M. Villeneuve
and M. Schmitz (in Session
HPS-05 on “Recent developments in the Geological Timescale”) to
apply the most up-to-date knowledge to re-calculate all published zircon
ages and their analytical and methodological error bars. Published ages
are also assigned to different classes of reliability. In specific cases
originally published and new ages differ significantly. The new data
will be incorporated into the scaling of Devonian time and stage/zone
durations in the Devonian chapter for the planned GTS 2010 timescale.
The Chairman has to revise
in co-operation with F. Gradstein
the previous House & Gradstein
chapter of the GTS 2004 book and welcomes outside advice and suggestions.
He will approach specific persons in order to deal with the various
problems. The
new Chairman of ICS, starting with the current IGC, is Stan Finney,
former ICS Vice-Chairman and Chairman of the Ordovician Subcommission;
the new vice-chairman is Shanshi Peng,
former Chairman of the Cambrian Subcommission. Therefore, there is a
very deep understanding of problems of Palaeozoic stratigraphy among the
current ICS officers. There has been a very positive and fruitful
co-operation with the outgoing ICS officers and this will continue in
the next four years to come. In addition to the mentioned D. McLaren
Medal to Carl Brett, the
ICS Medal in honour of single specific stratigraphical achievements was
awarded to J. Palfy. In
general, ICS has been exceedingly active in the past year, partly in
preparation for the IGC, where it was hoped to have as many new GSSPs
decided as possible. Decisions on the base of the Visean, Thanetian,
Selandian, Carnian and Bathonian stages were achieved and ratified. The Chairman took actively part in this process. In addition, the
“Quarternary Problem” is far from being solved and, consequently,
the IGC included several Quarternary sessions (e.g., symposium HPS-07 on
“Plio-Pleistocene correlation and Global Change”), with a special
discussion, including representatives of all relevant organisations,
that took place on the evening of the 9th August. The
selected Holocene GSSP has become unique since it is within a Greenland
icecore. The Upper Pleistocene GSSP also has been proposed in a core, at
Amsterdam Airport. At the IGC, it was not yet ratified since the
proposal was part of the ongoing Quarternary discussion. It has been
decided to make a complete new start, which includes future new
decisions on the status and base of the Quarternary, variably at ca. 1.8
Ma or at the base of the Gelasian, which is currently part of the
Pliocene (and Neogene). It has to be acknowledged that the Quarternary
discussion occupies a large part of ICS activities and capacities and
its past handling has, unfortunately, deteriorated the ICS-IUGS
relations. Reports
of each Subcommision are included in the voluminous ICS Report for 2007
to IUGS (Gradstein & Ogg
2007, 200 pp.), which is available from the Chairman
on request. The same applies to the partly voluminous Newsletters of the
International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification (ISSC),
published by its Chairlady Maria Bianca Cita.
Issues no. 12 and 13 were delivered in December 2007 and June 2008,
respectively, and deal with much more than classification problems. A
review of all current GSSPs, stratigraphic scales and geochronological
ages has been published as an update to the GTS 2004 by Ogg,
J.G., Ogg, G. & Gradstein,
F.M. “The Concise Geologic Time Scale”, Cambridge University Press,
177 pp. (published formally under the auspice of IUGS and ICS). For
the Devonian it adopted data from the chapter in GTS 2004. Unfortunately,
the GSSP updates in “Courier 225” are not recognized. Also, there
are multiple recent changes of zonations and correlations that will have
to be included in the forthcoming GTS 2010, which will have more than 30
chapters. Another
major task of ICS and of ISSC has been progress towards a new
“Stratigraphical Guide” that expands into modern stratigraphical
fields, such as sequence, isotope and cyclostratigraphy. Outlines for
future chapters on cyclostratigraphy (Strasser
et al. 2007) and chemostratigraphy (Weissert
et al. 2008) have been published in “Newsletters on Stratigraphy”
(42-2 and 42-3) and were meant to form a base for discussion before an
eventual completion/revision. Chapters on magnetostratigraphy (Langereis et al. 200) and sequence stratigraphy (Embry
et al. 2007) have also been distributed. All four proposals can be
requested from the Chairman
if not available from local libraries. The current efforts towards a new
Guide also lead to Symposium HPS-012 (“New developments in
stratigraphic classification”) and Workshop WSS-11 (with the same
title) at the IGC. The ICS Business Meeting took place in the early
evening of the 7th August, where the Chairman
gave a short report on current SDS activities. ICS
and ISSC Newsletter 13 drew attention to a new textbook on stratigraphy:
Rey, A. & Galeotti,
S. (Eds.), “Stratigraphy - Terminology and Practice” (Editions
TECHNIP, Paris, ISBN 976-2-7108-0910-4, 45 € or 54 $ + 6 € postage). 5.
Devonian Chronostratigraphic Definitions The
low attendance, lack of new documents, and time restrictions spoke
against detailed substage discussions. 5.1.
Emsian A
revision of the basal Emsian definition and subdivision into two
substages will become the prime focus of the forthcoming Kitab Field
Meeting. 5.2.
Eifelian A
wealth of new data from North America and Morocco suggests that a
subdivision into future formal Lower and Upper Eifelian substages could
be achieved. The base of the T. kockelianus australis Subzone
should be discussed for the base of the Upper Eifelian but aspects of
sequence stratigraphy have to be taken into consideration. 5.3.
Givetian Separate
formal substage proposals for the base of the Middle Givetian (base of rhenanus-varcus
Zone) and Upper Givetian (base of hermanni Zone) have to
submitted soon to ICS for ratification. The Working Group Chairman (CM Bultynck)
will be asked to take a leading role. 5.4.
Frasnian The
same applies to the base of the Middle Frasnian (base of MN 5 or punctata
Zone) and Upper Frasnian (transgression-controlled spread of Pa.
semichatovae). The Working Group Chairman (TM Over) will have, as in the past, a coordinating function. 5.5.
Famennian Although
members were specifically asked to submit final Famennian documents,
this has not happened. Two important papers on European and North
African conodont successions by Kaiser
et al. and Hartenfels & Becker
have been submitted to the Nevada Proceedings Volume (see Topic 7) and
these results will have to be considered during the vote. In the absence
of further contributions it was decided that the formal ballot (by
current TMs) should now proceed. No further straw vote will take place. 5.6.
D/C Boundary By
the presence of the past (Phil Heckel)
and new (Barry Rickards)
Carboniferous Chairmen, it was possible to formally start the new
International Working Group on the Devonian Carboniferous Boundary. From
the Devonian side it will consist of
From
the Carboniferous side the following members have been proposed:
This
composition covers the main and classical countries of D/C boundary
research, with the exception of Australia. There are specialists for
conodonts, ammonoids, spores, foraminiferes, brachiopods, corals,
trilobites, sequence stratigraphy, isotope stratigraphy, and
magnetostratigraphy. This promises constructive, multi-disciplinary
discussions. It is possible to expand the WG membership in order to
cover additional fields of science and regions. The Chairman announced
that C. Corradini agreed to
candidate as forthcoming WG Chairman, Ji
Qiang agreed to be a candidate for the Vice-Chairman position. The
voting shall take place amongst the WG members. However, candidates from
the Carboniferous side have to be proposed, too, and probably there will
be a competitive poll. The
present WG members agreed that no simple and fast solution (new GSSP)
can be expected and that new and high-quality data from old and new
sections need to be generated. As a rough work plan, the following major
tasks can be formulated. ·
conodont
data for the La Serre GSSP by S. Kaiser
(first rejected by Episodes but now in print in Newsletters on
Stratigraphy) ·
Revision
of taxonomy of critical siphonodellids and protognathodids in the D/C
transition. ·
Re-sampling
of well-known sections in the light Publication of the new and critical
of these revisions. ·
Documentation
of new or previously poorly studied D/C boundary sections. ·
Improvements
of the correlation between conodonts and other fossil groups. ·
Application
of other modern stratigraphical methods/techniques. ·
Decision
on the boundary level: confirmation of the current “sulcata”
level or change to different level. ·
Selection
of suitable GSSP section: La Serre or new section(s). ·
New,
revised GSSP proposal. Ji
Qiang proposed a conodont workshop to take place in summer 2009 in
Beijing, with the opportunity to re-sample the famous South Chinese
sections, especially the recently re-excavated Dapoushang section in
Guizhou Province. He promised significant support from the Chinese side,
which was well received. The Chairman reported briefly the rather disappointing results of
the re-sampling at Nanbiancun and at the partly covered and inaccessible
Muhua and Dapoushang sections in summer 2007, jointly with Sandra Kaiser.
At the latter, but before the more recent re-excavation, the base of the
Carboniferous was not reached (S. Kaiser,
wr. comm. June 2008) despite considerable efforts and help of some local
people. This emphasizes the importance to re-sample and protect the
site. The possibility was raised whether some WG members may meet in
conjunction with the NAPC in June 2009 or with ICOS in Calgary. It is
quite clear that the problems of conodont taxonomy need to be resolved
first. In this respect, the Chairman
announced that H. Tragelehn
is currently preparing a manuscript on siphonodellids from Franconia,
which include pre-Hangenberg forms that in their asymmetric curvature
already closely resemble Siph. sulcata. He should be invited to
the planned conodont workshop. In
the absence of any Canadian candidate it was proposed that CM J. Day
should follow T. Uyeno as
future TM to cover the Canadian Devonian. K. Weddige
has reached his upper time limit as TM and has also recently retired
from the Senckenberg Institute. It was proposed that he should be
followed after the IGC by U. Jansen.
CM J. Morrow declined the nomination to follow C.A. Sandberg
as TM for western North America since he felt that he would not have the
time and sufficient support to attend future SDS Meetings. The
current TMs still have to confirm the two new TM proposals. No
new CMs have been proposed. 7.
SDS Newsletter and Publications SDS
Newsletter 23 was edited by the Chairman,
with significant help by his secretary, Mrs. Susanne Klaus, and distributed in February 2008. It became the most
voluminous Newsletter so far, which in a very positive way reflects the
high level of SDS activities. But the increase in length came with an
increase in costs. SDS
can be proud that in 2007/2008 seven different volumes with Devonian
contributions, involving many SDS members, and mostly in fruitful
cooperation with IGCP 499, have been published, are in print, or are in
preparation: 1.
Geological
Society of London, Special Publications, 278,
“Devonian “vents and Correlations”, Becker,
R.T. & Kirchgasser, W.T. (Eds.) – mostly the outcome of
2004 Morocco Meeting. 2.
Geological
Quarterly, 51 (4),
“Recent approaches to Devonian conodont zonations”, Bultynck, P.
& Narkiewicz, M. (Eds) – outcome of Leicester ICOS session. 3.
Geological
Society of London, Special Publications, 341,
IGCP 499 volume on “Devonian
Chance: Case Studies in Palaeogeography and Palaeoecology”, P. Königshof
(Ed.). 4.
Bulletin
of Geosciences, 83 (4),
P. Königshof, O. Obut
& N. Izokh (Eds.) – partly the outcome of 2005 Novosibirsk
meeting.
5.
Proceedings
volume of the 2007 Nevada Meeting, to be published in Palaeontographica
Americana,
J. Over (Ed.)
6.
IGCP
499 special
volume in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, “Sea-level
and climatic cyclicity and bioevents in Middle Devonian marine and
terrestrial environments”, C.E. Brett, E. Schindler
& P. Königshof (Eds.). 7.
Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, special
volume on D/C boundary, P. Isaacson
(Ed.) [cancelled in the meantime, February 2009] balance
from early 2007
256 $ private
donation 2007
100 $ ICS
subsidy 2007
400 $ balance
end of 2007
756 $ SDS
Newsletter 23
450 $ ICS
subsidy 2008
350 $ balance
at IGC
656 $ (open:
SDS Newsletter 24
450 $) The
poor funding by IUGS/ICS in 2008 did not allow to support any SDS Member
to attend the IGC. 2008 Two
more conferences with formal SDS support will take place in 2008: The
Field Symposium in the Kitab Reserve, Uzbekistan, in late August and
early September (25th to 3rd), and, unfortunately in parallel,
the International Congress on “Palaeozoic Climates” in Lille, France
(25th to 29th August). During the Kitab symposium,
a second formal Business Meeting will be conducted. 2009 The
Annual Business Meeting 2009 will be held in conjunction with the North
American Paleontological Convention (NPAC), in June (12th to
26th) in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. (see www.napc2009.org),
followed by a Devonian excursion to Ohio, Kentucky and adjacent states,
kindly offered by TM Brett
and collaborators. 2010 The
3rd International Palaeontological Congress has now been
scheduled for London. This gives a second opportunity for the formerly
cancelled fieldtrip to the Old Red Devonian in Scottland. 10.
Any other business None
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