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IGCP 503:
IGCP project 503 working groups
by Thomas Servais and the co-leaders
On of the major achievements of the very successful
IGCP project 410 “The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event”, that
run during the 6 years 1997-2000, was the creation and coordinated work
of the different regional teams and the global “clade” teams (see
elsewhere in this newsletter).
During the opening meeting of the new (successor)
project IGCP 503 “Ordovician Palaeogeography and Palaeoclimate” at
Erlangen in September 2004, the six co-leaders of the new project met
in order to discuss the way how to continue the good work that was done
in the previous years under the guidance of Barry Webby and his
co-leaders. During the “business meeting” of the IGCP 503 at Erlangen,
the main ideas were presented to the participants, and there was a
general agreement on the following points:
The different regional teams that have coordinated
their efforts in establishing regional (at a palaeocontinental scale)
biodiversity curves, should continue their work. Some of the teams were
and are very active, while others were composed only by a few
individuals. The composition of the different regional teams will be
discussed within the next months. Following discussions at Erlangen, it
was decided that a “Russian and
former Soviet Union states” working
group will be set up. As many workers are also active in the Middle
East, it was proposed to establish a working group for this
region
(including a.o. countries Iran).
The Baltic regional team is
particularly active,
with the organisation of the 8th Wogogob (May 2004, for a report see
elsewhere in this newsletter) and a next meeting during the 6th Baltic
Stratigraphical Conference in August 2005.
The western and southern European
team did also good
work during 410, and discussions are currently going on to continue
this work. Several meetings should be organised by this regional team
in the next years (Glasgow 2006, Zaragosa 2007, Lille 2008).
The North American team organises
the major meeting
of this year 2005 (at Milwaukee, see announcement in this newsletter),
while the South American team
will have a regional meeting during the
Gondwana 12 Congress at Mendoza, Argentina, later this year.
The very active Chinese team
will organise the major
meeting in 2007, but probably also a session at the 2nd International
Palaeontological Congress at Bejing in 2006.
The composition of the different regional teams,
with the selection of one or several coordinators, will be discussed in
the following months. You are welcome to inform the leaders of the IGCP
503 project if you wish to participate or serve as local or regional
coordinator.
The leaders of IGCP 410 also created “clade” teams
for each (or almost each) fossil group in the Ordovician. Most of the
groups provided most detailed biodiversity curves following a detailed
counting of species, genera and suprageneric taxa in literature. For
some fossil groups the results are already now very detailed, for other
groups, there is still a lot of compiling work to do. It is therefore
vital to keep these “clade” teams active. As for the regional teams,
the leaders of IGCP 503 will contact individual workers in order to
find for each fossil group a coordinator that can report on the
progress of the work of the “clade” team. We would also like to
encourage Ordovician workers to organise specific IGCP 503 sessions at
the international congresses of the different fossil groups. The
brachiopod clade team, for example, will have a special IGCP 503
session during the 5th International Brachiopod Congress at Copenhagen,
Denmark this year (see announcement in this newsletter), while the
palynomorph clade teams (acritarchs, chitinozoans, miospores,
scolecodonts) will meet during the CIMP General Meeting in September
2007 at Prague.
Please, let us know, when you plan to organise IGCP
503 sessions at international congresses dedicated to specific fossil
groups.
The composition of the different clade teams and the
selection of its coordinators, will be discussed in the following
months and the complete list should be announced in one of the next
newsletters. Please, inform the leaders of the IGCP 503 project if you
wish to participate or serve as clade team coordinator.
In addition to these regional and “clade” teams,
that were created by the IGCP 410 leaders, we discussed at Erlangen the
necessity to establish other working groups, that should discuss in the
next four years some specific topics. The six co-leaders accepted to be
the coordinators of these discussion groups:
Following the sessions on isotope geochemistry and
interpretation at Erlangen, A.
Munnecke accepted to be coordinator of a
working group on isotope geochemistry
in the Lower Palaeozoic. P. Sheehan, organiser of the
Milwaukee meeting in
2005, and concentrating research on evolutionary palaeoecology will be
the coordinator of a working group on
palaeoecology changes during the
Lower Palaeozoic.
As organiser of the main meeting in 2006 at Glasgow,
and being involved during IGCP 410 in the set up of large databases, A.
Owen will serve as the coordinator of a working group on databases of
the Ordovician-Silurian biodiversification.
Organiser of the major meeting of IGCP 503 at
Nanjing in 2007, jointly with the meetings of the Ordovician and
Silurian Subcommissions on Stratigraphy, Li Jun accepted to establish
and coordinate the working group on
biostratigraphy and correlations,
in cooperation with the chairmen of the Ordovician (Chen Xu) and
Silurian subcommission (Rong JiaYu).
D. Harper accepted to
coordinate a working group of
sea-level reconstructions. These reconstructions and their
international correlations are a major goal of our new project.
Dave is interested in developing the relationship between sea level curves, biofacies
and major biotic events.
Finally, T. Servais will
coordinate the working
group on palaeogeographical reconstructions, attempting to bring
together palaeomagnetism specialists and palaeontologists, in order to
make progress in the next few years, with as a possible result, new,
more realistic reconstructions of the geography during Lower Palaeozoic
times. In addition, T. Servais will also coordinate a working group of
climate modelling in the Lower Palaeozoic, with a particular
interest
in the modelling of the Late Ordovician glaciation.
The composition and coordination of these working
groups will also be discussed in the next months. Please, feel free to
contact the coordinators (leaders) if you wish to participate. Your
comments and suggestions are welcome and needed.